


quiet breathing

by HunterPeverell



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Writing & Publishing, Apathy, Artist Steve Rogers, Asthmatic Steve Rogers, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Demisexual Bucky Barnes, Demisexuality, Do I have enough tags yet?, Exhaustion, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt Bucky Barnes, M/M, Mental Anguish, Nightmares, Pain, Slow Burn, Writer Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-20
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-09-09 22:58:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8916388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HunterPeverell/pseuds/HunterPeverell
Summary: Bucky lived a charmed life for exactly twenty-two years before the Incident interupted his life and reduced him to a shell of who he once was. Now twenty-eight, Bucky must deal with nightmares, apathy, therapy, and the scattered remains of his life.Then came Steve, who radiated sunlight and may spark life and magic back into Bucky's heart.





	1. If the World Gets Wild and Scary

**Author's Note:**

  * For [onethingconstant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/onethingconstant/gifts).



> Hey guys! I know, it's been a while, oops? Anyway, this is for a prompt by onethingconstant who basically wanted a non-asexual person loving an asexual person and so I started writing it and IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A ONE SHOT AND HOLY SHIT I'M NOW NEARLY AT 20k AND STILL GOING. So buckle up, kiddies, because this is going to be a long one! Updates will be weekly, and I'll let you know the schedule once I figure it out.
> 
> I disclaim. Cap & Co. are not mine (and probably for a good reason :P)
> 
> The chapter title comes from the song "Huckleberry" by Toby Keith.
> 
> I suck at writing romance, so I hope I do okay. Also, if I change anything in the previous chapters, I'll let you know. I also deal a bit with mental health in this one. I took a roundabout way of dealing with it, so his direct issues aren't the forefront of the fic. Please give me feedback on just everything? Click the kudos or leave a comment, I really would appreciate it!

For as long as he could remember, Bucky’s like had been like a cheerful, upbeat song. Sure, there had been rough patches, like when his Ma had been diagnosed with diabetes and when Bucky had to be taken to the hospital to get his appendix removed, but he was well aware that there were people out there who suffered worse and, overall, he considered himself quite lucky.

That is, until the Incident.

 

*  
Calling it “the Incident” was Bucky’s way of stuffing it in a box. Any other name made it seem too big, too large, to immediate.

Too painful.

Too overwhelming.

 

*

Bucky knew how to use the Internet.

Well, everyone kinda does at this point, but most people use it to look at angry forum rants and John Oliver, let’s be real here.

Bucky did that too, of course (John Oliver made him smile, if only in his mind) but he knew how to sort through all the bullshit and find some hard facts.

So he _knew_ he wasn’t broken.

But boy, did it feel like it sometimes.

 

*

Before the Incident, Bucky had been a dancer.

Not, like, _professionally,_ though he had considered that a few times in the last couple of years.

He had a distant memory, his feet tap-tapping to an old swing number his granma played on a gramophone sometimes.

“My little dancer,” she’d laugh before taking his hands and twirling around with him.

Bucky didn’t really ever stop dancing, not through high school or college or the years before the Incident. He’d dance and wink and flirt with girls (and later, guys) but no matter what they said to him, trying to get him into their bed, Bucky just kept dancing.

The music soaked into his bones, filling him up until he felt as though he would burst.

His partners would look at him with wide eyes, hopeful for something more, something consuming, something Bucky wasn’t sure he could give them.

Bucky closed his eyes, blocking their eyes, and listened to the music.

*

 _Intro’s done,_ Bucky thought, staring at the screen. He scratched the back of his neck idly, fingers coming away with tiny flecks of hairs.

Honestly, what was the point of wrapping the paper around his neck if the hair cutter still got hair everywhere? Bucky had meant to jump straight into the shower, but just as he was opening his front door, he thought of the perfect way to end act one of his book.

That took priority.

The cursor blinked at him as Bucky reread the last few sentences, nodding unconsciously to himself.

He heard her approach but didn’t turn around as she leaned in close and all but purred, “You need a shower.”

Bucky snorted, his lips curled into a smile as her strong fingers tugged gently at his short locks.

“Hello to you, too, Nat.” He brought his knees in close and swiveled his chair around, steepling his fingers in an attempt to look sophisticated. He failed and he knew it, but Nat’s eyes softened and her lips tugged upwards to mirror his own smirk.

She stood with her hip jutted out, one hand splayed across it. “And yet,” she said. “I don’t see you moving. Shoo.”

Bucky pouted, but got to his feet. Already, his mind was mapping out the next part of his novel, already he wanted to be back at his desk. However, it was best to never, ever argue with Natasha.

Clint would laugh and gloat about just how thoroughly whipped Bucky was, as if he wasn’t just as whipped.

As he passed Nat, she rose to the balls of her feet and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. He smiled at her and continued to the bathroom.

 

*

“So if you’re a goddess, whatcha doin’ with a mere mortal like me?” Bucky asked, a lazy grin splayed across his lips as Nat raised her eyebrows, thoroughly unimpressed.

“Really, James?” she asked and Bucky clapped a hand over his heart.

“Calling me by my Christian name, Nat, what a low blow!”

Nat snorted and dropped onto the couch next to Bucky, paying no mind to the way her dress creased. She kicked off her shoes and Bucky took the opportunity to bury his face in the crook of her neck, breathing in her scent, feeling her silky skin against the bridge of his nose and his cheeks.

Nat’s hand came up to stroke his hair, feeling the buzzed sides and the floppy top. Bucky smiled and opened his eyes and all he could see was Nat and he had never, ever felt happier.

“I love you,” he murmured, his heart singing, _aching,_ with the truth of it.

“I love you, too,” she murmured, and Bucky closed his eyes, content.

 

*

Bucky slumped into the cushions of his couch. An empty bottle of vodka rested next to his limp, bare foot, its ghost pounding around his temples.

The curtains were drawn, and the light that managed to punch its way through the heavy fabric was muted and yellow. Sickly.

Bucky couldn’t manage to muster enough energy to do anything, not even shift away from the light.

He just wanted to fucking die.

…

(Well, he never claimed to be perfect.)

(Not when he was sober, at least.)

It had been five months since the Incident.

 

*

Bucky didn’t want to be at one of Nat’s functions, even though he supported it whole heartedly. It’s just, tonight he wanted to write.

He _was_ writing, actually. On his phone, in email. It was not … ideal, but the words were flowing in that desperate, unyielding way he loved and right now he’d write on toilet paper if it meant getting the words out.

There was a muffled thudding of a person tapping the head of a microphone. Bucky didn’t look up, just needing to finish this last sentence…

“Thank you all for coming,” came Nat’s booming voice. Bucky backspaced a misspelled word, retyped it, added a period, and looked up as he clicked his phone dark.

Nat looked stunning, of course. Her red hair, just dark enough to _not_ be strawberry blonde, was in an elegant bun atop her head and the few locks that fell artfully about her face her softly curled. Her pale golden dress hugged her body in all the right places, and Bucky couldn’t believe this woman, this incredible, amazing woman, was in his life.

“My name is Natalia Romanoff, and I’m the founder and head of the Association for Student Equality and Desegregation.”

There was a smattering of enthusiastic applause, and Natasha graced the audience with a small smile.

“I want to thank you all for your support and donations. I wish, as I’m sure many of you do, that this organization wasn’t necessary, but since those in charge of our school systems have not yet promoted equal schooling for all children, I stand before you today. I cannot express just how much your support means to me.”

Natasha continued speaking and though Bucky normally would have made at least an effort to listen, Markos and Julio were writing out a conversation that would allow them to begin to understand one another…

Natasha understood how necessary his writing was and besides, Bucky actively avoided ego-stroking—he left that up to Nat.

“If it furthers my crusade…” she always said.

Bucky began typing again, fingers flying across the tiny digital keyboard.

 

*

Bucky had a bit of a reputation in high school.

_That Barnes kid, he loves ‘em and leaves ‘em._

It’s not like Bucky _didn’t_ like the girls he flirted with. He liked them well enough. When they whispered that they might-maybe-IthinkI _like_ Bucky, he found he didn’t return the sentiment.

And his granma, though getting older and frail, would whip him so hard if she found out he was lying to women.

Bucky didn’t know why he didn’t get a ton of crushes—he was surrounded by some pretty teenagers seven hours a day—but maybe he just loved harder.

Because there was a person he liked.

Natasha Romanoff moved stateside when she was thirteen. She went to Bucky’s middle school and the two hit off almost immediately. It had been friendship and nothing more throughout that year and through most of high school. They had been friends.

Now they’re seventeen and God, Bucky likes her.

 

*

They don’t get together until junior year of college. She asked him to ask her out in her usual blunt and brisk way and Bucky, red faced, stammered out the question.

They go out to breakfast, because breakfast has the best food and Bucky will fight anyone who disagrees.

More realistically, he’d get Natasha to fight them.

Bucky had been on dates before, but staring at this woman who positively _crackled_ with life and energy, he decided nothing was better, that he loved this woman.

 

*

The words continued to flow, the story coaxed into existence and sending a surge of delight through him until the shadows grew long and his eyes begged for a break and still he kept on writing.

He loved this. It was like magic.

 

*

Bucky and Nat lay in bed, murmuring quietly to each other while the sleepy brush of early morning light rippled across their sheets, stretching across their bodies as the earth steadily spun beneath them.

“So, what are you going to do when you become the most famous author in the world?” Nat’s eyes were sparkling with amusement, her smooth skin dusted with shadows.

“I’m not gonna become famous!” Bucky protested.

Nat wrinkled her nose. “You’re no fun, Bucky. C’mon, seriously—what’s the first thing you would do?”

Bucky heaved a dramatic sigh and dropped his head onto his pillow. “The first thing I would do if I became the most famous author in the world is kiss the gorgeous woman lying next to me and take her to the crappy schwarma joint she likes.”

“You’re conflating me with that asshole Stark,” Nat told her, but the miniscule softening in her eyes told Bucky he had spoken well.

“Oh, my bad,” he said. “I meant the crappy frozen yogurt place.”

Nat hit him. “Okay, stop talking.”

They tussled slightly, Nat trying to reach Bucky’s ticklish spots while Bucky tried to stop her. They muffled their giggles by biting their lips, and when Nat suddenly flipped over so that she was straddling him, their hair mixed red and brown, the colors of autumn.

Nat leaned down and kissed his nose.

“Naaat,” Bucky whined.

“Shut up,” she mumbled before kissing him once, twice, three minds, mindless of their morning breath and their sleep-encumbered limbs.

Nat broke off, giggling to herself.

“What is it?” Bucky grinned.

“Baby you’ll be my huckleberry,” Nat mumbled back, her eyes bright and her smile small and true.

“Oh God no, save me from country music,” Bucky mumbled and leaned up for a kiss.

And Bucky had never been more in love.

 

*

 

Bucky finished his book on the last day of his life.

It’s funny, but he didn’t realize there was more than one way to die.

Humans can only endure so much until they break, leaving a different person in their place.

Bucky was always meant to break.

 

*

It happened like this:

LOCAL MAN DISAPPEARED

RUNAWAY OR KIDNAPPED?

LOVING GIRLFRIEND PLEADS SAFE RETURN

 

*

It happened like this:

_He screamed and he screamed and he-_

_There was no end._

_Please let there be an end..._

 

*

It happened like this:

Bucky was walking back from a bookstore, the sweet notes of spoken poetry thrumming in his heart. They held poetry sessions every week and while Bucky didn’t make it all the time, he tried going as often as possible and, flushed with the success of finishing his manuscript and Nat off on an unavoidable investors meeting, Bucky had gone out.

The screen of his phone lit up—it rested in his breast pocket, vibrating softly, the glow dimmed by the fabric. He dug it out and smiled at Nat’s name.

“Hey,” he said after he accepted the call.

“Hey yourself,” she replied. “How was the poetry … thing?”

Bucky laughed. “Just fine. Oh, hey, I forgot to tell you—I think my book is finally done.”

Nat squealed, “Congratulations!” and Bucky whooped along with her.

“I’m so proud of you,” Nat continued, her voice warm and excited.

Bucky closed his eyes for a moment, overcome with the love pulsing though his veins.

“I love you,” he said, accidentally cutting across Nat’s joyful rambling. “I don’t know how I deserve you, but I love you. So much.”

“I love you too,” Nat said softly. “And you—”

Bucky staggered, his vision swimming. Nat’s voice fell away from his ear as is hand went limp, phone dropping to the pavement.

“James Buchannan Barnes,” a voice, nasal and gleeful. Bucky didn’t recognize it. Instead he groaned as pain blossomed across his face—did he fall? He couldn’t tell…

Before he blacked out completely, he heard Nat’s voice, slurring with panic and static:

_“Bucky? Bucky? BUCKY?”_

 

*

_“My little experiment.”_

_“This isn’t legal—where’re you getting your funding?”_

_“The Black Market, of course.”_

_“Of course. Why him?”_

_“His father was my rival. This seemed like the perfect revenge, no?”_

_“No, it’s fitting … What, exactly, am I looking at?”_

_“A weapon. A signal locked onto human brain wave frequency and temporarily scrambles it. A memory reboot, if you will. It lasts for up to a day, more than enough time to do whatever you need to do.”_

_“Is his brain permanently fried?”_

_“I wouldn’t be surprised, but I don’t particularly care. Come see some of my other weapons…”_

 

*

The man’s name was Arnim Zola.

Bucky found out his first day. Zola liked to talk over his screams.

 

*

A lot of things happen in a year. Events occur, public mindsets shift, wars start, wars end, technology leaps forward faster and faster…

In 2010, Haiti was hit with a devastating earthquake. Yemen declared war on al-Qaeda. Simon Cowell left American Idol. Toy Story 3 was released.

Bucky remembered some of those events.

It was what came after he missed in his time in Hell.

He missed Osama bin Laden’s death in 2011, the landing of Curiosity in 2012; Snowden’s leakage of classified government files passed him by in 2013; he remained unaware of the Ebola outbreak in 2014, the refugee crisis in Europe in 2015, and the shitstorm that was 2016.

He missed everything, the world left him behind.

Until January 16th, 2017.

 

*

NEW HIT BOOK SERIES PICKED UP BY _WARNER BROTHERS._

By Darcy Lewis

December 13th, 2015

 

 _When “Spring Showers” by Nevada Miles hit the shelves in 2014, few paid attention to it. It wasn’t until early 2015 that people noticed the stunning story within its pages. Its success is due in large part to wealthy entrepreneur Natalia Romanoff, founder of ASED and_ Read, Read, Readers, _a charity for getting books to kids in poor, rural areas._

 _The book blew up on the Internet because of this, and by the time_ Warner Bros _picked it up, it had reached the top of the New York Times Bestseller list, where it stayed for nearly ten weeks. It has won both the Hugo and Nebula awards in 2015, and fans are waiting on baited breath for any news, either on the upcoming movie or the much-awaited sequel._

“Spring Showers” _left itself wide open for a sequel, with strong, heroic Nicholas North, funny best friend Markos Mareno, and supporting cast Julio, Autumn, and May all poised to uncover more mysteries about their mysterious powers and the Devastation that seems determined to kill them. Set in an alternate world where technology has taken over the world, whose axis has been frozen and has cast the world into a season-less world of either unending light or dark, the group has been thrown into the middle of the political and environmental crisis that has been growing larger over the last decade._

 _Nothing about a sequel has been heard from the author, Nevada Miles. It has been speculated Miles is a pen name, but that hasn’t stopped the fans from demanding more. The publishing company has kept silent about any future books which leaves the largest question—is Miles working on a sequel even as I type these words, or is_ “Spring Showers” _the most we will ever get from that brilliant mind?_

_Stay tuned for promotional stills of the movie, which are set to be released in a week._

 

*

Bucky woke up in the hospital a week after his rescue—a SWAT team had burst into his cell. Bucky had, out of his mind with fear and pain, lashed out against them with a brutal savagery that caused them to tranquilize him. He had remained unconscious since them, but when his eyes finally fluttered open, it was to see a familiar face, drawn with exhaustion and sadness.

Bucky made a soft grunting noise.

“Bucky.” Her eyes snapped up to meet his. “You’re awake.”

Bucky passed out again.

 

*

_“Now you’re all caught up,” Markos told the wide-eyed Autumn, her face still speckled with blood._

_She made a choked, terrified sound in the back of her throat._

_“I know,” Markos said. “But it’ll be okay. There’s always hope for being ‘okay’ in the future.”_

_Autumn closed her eyes, a tear leaking out of the corner of her eye”_ (103).

(Miles, Nevada. Spring Showers. Black Widow Publishing, 2014.)


	2. Are You Aware the Shape I’m In?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I'm playing with them.
> 
> Title is from the Avett Brother's song "I an Love and You"
> 
> Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Happy Kwanzaa! This is a time for love and family and I hope you all have a great day.
> 
> I thank each and every single one of my readers because you make me smile. I wish everyone of you only the best :)
> 
> Warnings in the end comments.

Things weren’t okay.

Not even a little bit.

Bucky slumped into the cushions of his couch. An empty bottle of vodka rested next to his limp, bare foot, its ghost pounding around his temples.

The curtains were drawn, and the light that managed to punch its way through the heavy fabric was muted and yellow. Sickly.

Bucky couldn’t manage to muster enough energy to do anything, not even shift away from the light.

He just wanted to fucking die.

…

Well, he never claimed to be perfect.

Not when he was sober, at least.

It had been three months since he had been released from the hospital. It had been four months since he had been found in the Hellhole that was Zola’s laboratory.

He started when Nat barged in without knocking. She stopped and took one look at him, her face blank and her limbs still. Bucky’s apartment was dark, so he couldn’t see her eyes to see if she was struggling to hide any emotion.

“James,” she said, her voice dangerously soft. “What is going on?”

Bucky closed his eyes and breathed. He felt a soft breeze in front of his face and reopened them to see Nat staring at him, her face only a few inches away.

“Jesus, Nat,” he mumbled, wincing as his sour breath escaped his mouth. “Go ‘way.”

“No,” she said. “Get the fuck up and shower.”

Bucky stood and left the room without comment.

When he came back, his wet hair plastered to his neck, Nat was sitting on the couch with a cup of tea, which she held out for him as soon as she saw him. The empty bottles had been cleared up and she had pulled back the curtains and opened the window so that the sunshine streamed across the floor and some of the stale smells wafted away.

“Sit,” she said.

Bucky sat.

“Tell me what the hell you’re doing,” she said.

Bucky shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“That isn’t good enough,” Nat snapped. “Tell me what you are doing and how I can help you.”

“I’m not your damn problem!” Bucky snapped.

There was a beat of silence.

“You are because I choose to help you.” Nat’s voice was barely above a whisper and her expression was terrifying. “This is my choice and I thought long and hard about this and I am going to be here for you because I still … care. So, stop slumping, sit up, and give me a real answer.”

Bucky slowly sat up, eyeing her warily, before opening his mouth.

“No bullshit,” Nat said.

Bucky closed his mouth.

Then he thought.

He thought about the days on his couch and the alcohol he bought with his hood up and his smile forced. He thought about the hospital and the apartment and the Hellhole and…

Finally, he said, “I’m tired.”

Natasha’s neutral expression didn’t waver as she asked, “Care to elaborate?”

“I’m tired,” he repeated. “I just want to sleep. Sometimes, I think I want to sleep forever.”

The corner of Nat’s eye twitched and she let out a slow, measured breath. “You can’t do that.”

“I know,” Bucky said. “But I want to.”

Nat stayed the night, but when Bucky awoke the only thing she left behind was a small iPod and a set of speakers. Bucky put it together and pressed play, allowing whatever music there was to come forth.

The music began immediately and soaked into his bones, filling him up until he felt as though he would burst.

He was still tired, the kind of tired that was soul-deep and wrapped around his very self until all he could see was the darkness and the shadows and the _pain…_

With a shuddering breath, Bucky tore himself away from those thoughts. He closed his eyes, blocking the shadows, and listened to the music.

 

*

Bucky’s days were an empty blur.

He attended therapy sessions four times a week, but that was generally his only contact with the outside world. The rest of the time was spent sleeping, eating, or staring blankly at the wall. It wasn’t healthy and he knew that, but apathy had claimed his life, wrapping its foul, oil-slick tentacles around his chest, constricting and constricting and _constricting—_

Bucky woke with a sobbed-out scream, clawing at the blankets that had bunched around his chest, panting and crying.

The blanket pushed away, he leaned back against the couch arm and ran his hands through his hair, taking in deep, shuddering breaths.

His apartment—Nat’s apartment, really, since she’s the one with the job and the money and the willingness to help him—wasn’t silent. The iPod was still hooked up to a player, and the soft notes of some movie score drifted through the air.

Bucky couldn’t stand the silence, not anymore. Not now that he had the choice not to.

He listened to the notes, matched his breaths with its steady pace, and drifted slightly.

The clawing at the back of his mind, the one where Zola’s hateful voice crooned in mock-sympathy, where Bucky’s helpless screams radiated through the air, where Zola’s bodyguard laughed cruelly, where the clients watched avidly…

Bucky sobbed, breaking his carefully measured breathing. He gripped the cushions tightly and forced himself to try again. He just needed air. He just needed to breathe.

_One in, one out, one in, one out, one in, one out, one in…_

This was as close to peace as Bucky got, these days.

 

*

Bucky knew how to use the Internet.

Well, everyone kinda does at this point, but most people use it to look at angry forum rants and John Oliver, let’s be real here.

Bucky did that too, of course (John Oliver made him smile, if only in his mind) but he knew how to sort through all the bullshit and find some hard facts.

So, he _knew_ he wasn’t broken.

But boy, did it feel like it sometimes.

 

*

Bucky’s hair was long nowadays.

The first thing Zola had done was shave it all off. He needed to attach electrodes to Bucky’s head, and the hair got in the way. Bucky had yelled when Zola’s brute of a guard had grabbed it and had nearly wet himself (he wasn’t proud, okay?) when the wickedly sharp blade of a knife had come near his head. Instead, the guard—a guy named Rumlow, Bucky would later learn—sheared off large chunks of his hair.

“Closer to the scalp,” Zola called out and Bucky jerked, not having known he was in the room. “As close as possible, please.”

Rumlow grinned, savage and dark. Bucky whimpered and closed his eyes.

His scalp still bore the scars.

But now his hair was growing longer, curling his below his ears. Bucky could hide behind the fringes of his bangs now, and though he knew rationally it provided no protection, it made it seem as though there was a barrier between him and the rest of the world.

It made him feel safe.

God, Bucky was so pathetic nowadays.

He picked up his iPod, put his earbuds in, and turned up the volume of his music, losing himself in the beats.

 

*

He and Nat were over, had been the moment he got back.

It was a mutual thing, but essentially, when they had a moment alone in the hospital, Bucky looked Nat straight in the eye and said: “I need time.”

“I know,” Nat had responded, and that was that.

To be honest, Bucky loved her still. But he didn’t know if he loved her that way or not, and it wasn’t the most important thing for him to think about. He still loved her, she still loved him, but time had had its way.

He noticed the changes in her, now. He noticed the way her eyes were cold and her smile insincere and her movement swift and fluid. She looked deadly, a terribly beautiful force of nature that would ensnare the unsuspecting and ruin them without a second thought.

Bucky was too broken to deal with that, but once he was better, he swore to himself in the privacy of his head, he’d help her.

Clint had been a saving grace in that, bringing Bucky little knickknacks that served no purpose other than to make him smile. When Clint jokingly brought in a book called _The Flirting Bible,_ Bucky asked him in an undertone if Nat was alright.

“No, she’s not,” Clint said, looking at Bucky seriously since the first time Bucky had seen him in the hospital, back when they didn’t know the extent to the damage but Nat convinced the orderlies to let friends in, since most of Bucky’s family weren’t around anymore.

“She’s been through a lot,” Clint continued. “She’s just … She needs time to adjust, y’know?”

“Yeah,” Bucky murmured. “I know.”

The rest of Clint’s stay wasn’t nearly as fun, though Clint tried to lighten it up with jokes and funny little anecdotes about the most random, inane things from his apartment in Bed Stuy, which he had moved into about a year after Bucky disappeared.

Bucky was sure he had made some things up. No way could all those drug dealers converge on just one place…

Clint made things brighter, that was for sure. He distracted Bucky from his miserable existence, gave him something to hold onto.

Clint had left an hour ago, leaving Bucky with the book on flirting and the recommendation of a show on Netflix called “Dog Cops.”

It wasn’t like Bucky had anything else to do.

 

*

Bucky was in a weird mental state. When Zola wasn’t torturing him or experimenting on him, he kept Bucky in a medically induced coma. Bucky was usually kept drugged up, after the first month or so. 

He didn’t flinch at touch unless it was fast and unexpected, and Bucky couldn’t help but be glad for it, as touch-starved as he was.

No, what Bucky suffered from was exhaustion, a fear of unknown spaces, and nightmares.

The screams echoed in his ears, and Bucky stayed awake, stayed awake, _stayed awake…_

 

*

There was a knock on the door accompanied by a soft, “Hey.” 

Bucky glanced up to see Nat standing in the door way. Her red hair, curled in ringlets today, was darker in the shadows of his room and her elegant black dress told him she had come here straight after work.

“Hey, Nat.” Bucky smiled. Nat returned it. It was all wrong—her smile was too sharp, his to shattered, and _what had they become…_

“Hey, hey, hey, Bucky, no.” Nat was in front of him, cupping his cheek and stroking the soft skin just below his eye. “Bucky, it’s okay, it’s okay.”

“What’s happened to us?” Bucky choked out. The air seemed to be seeping out of his lungs faster than he could breathe, and he listened for his music drifting from the corner of the room. It was some Indie band that he remembered, kind of. It might have been something he liked Before.

“Life,” Nat said. “Bucky, count your breaths.”

Together they breathed, together they tried to hold on.

 

*

Bucky didn’t complain about therapy. He was seeing three different therapists: one for his trauma, one for his PTSD, and one for his memory issues.

Zola had called it the “Memory Obliterator” because while he was a genius (something Bucky couldn’t even fucking deny him, though he wished he could) he wasn’t a particularly _creative_ namer. In essence, it dispelled a person’s memory for a period up to forty-eight hours, and Bucky was the guy Zola demonstrated it on for clients. This repeated mind wipe made Bucky’s past hazy, and may had slightly damaged his long-term memory storage. His therapist who helped him assess his memory damage was named Percy Wetherbee. She was pleasant—all his therapists were great; Michele McNamara helped him with his trauma and Sam Wilson for his PTSD.

Bucky didn’t hate therapy. He just hated being _broken._

 

*

From: Natasha (10:09 AM)

_What groceries do u need?_

 

*

Bucky gasped awake, the feeling of needles burying themselves in his skin the first thing he felt. His mind felt sluggish and jumbled together, like soup. The air was cold on his bare skin.

“Rise and shine, sleeping beauty,” a rough voice crooned, a scarred hand rubbing at his inner thigh. Bucky flinched away.

“Rumlow,” another voice snapped, this one heavily accented. “I need you to bring in our new guests. Do so now.”

“Yes boss.” The hand left, and Bucky moaned in confusion and pain.

_“It’s alright, Barnes,” the accented voice said. “You’ll forget all of this soon, and you will bring me more money, more investors. You are the future.”_

Bucky awoke, gasping.

He closed his eyes, but all he could see were the little round glasses Zola wore and the bright red of his little bowtie.

He rested his head on top of his knees and _breathed._

 

*

“You’ve been having a rough few days,” Nat commented as she put away food. She hadn’t bought anything perishable, something Bucky was grateful for.

“I know,” Bucky said. His voice was rough and brittle. He cleared it and when he spoke again, it was marginally better. “I’ve been trying Nat.”

“I know.” Nat braced herself against the counter, head hanging down. “God, I _know,_ Bucky. I’ve seen you trying, I know.”

Bucky couldn’t see her face from this angle; she was turned slightly away and her hair blocked her face mostly. He could tell, however, that Natasha Romanov was close to crying.

Or as close to crying as Natasha got, these days.

“I think I’ve made progress,” he said.

“You have.” Nat turned around and braced herself against the counter. “It’s been five months since you left the hospital, Bucky. I’m not expecting a miracle, it’s just…”

“It’s been hard. I know.”

Bucky’s heart ached for her, and when he slowly reached out to hold her in a loose hug, she didn’t protest.

He thought she might have even leaned into the touch.

 

*

The first time he woke up in the hospital and managed to stay awake, he hadn’t recognized Natasha.

His screams and her desperate, rambled attempts to comfort him had drawn the doctors and nurses to his room faster than a GSW.

It was only after they injected him with something that made his eyes droop that he blinked at Nat and slurred, _“Nat?”_ that he realized he _knew_ her.

She cried that day. She hadn’t cried since.

 

*

Bucky took a deep breath and slowly opened the door to his apartment. Opening it a crack first, he peered out at the hall. It looked a bit like a motel hallway, with similar-looking doors differentiated only by the occasional “Welcome!” mat or cheesy sign hung from a hook. Bucky didn’t open the door any wider for a few moments, the soft tunes of “King and Lionheart” playing behind him, grounding him.

Once he felt ready (he wasn’t even close to ready, but his heartbeat was more or less steady, which was his version of “ready” nowadays) Bucky opened the door wide enough for him to slip out, patting his pocket for his key as he did so.

The door closed softly behind him, and Bucky took off down the hall with his head ducked down, his hair just long enough to fall in his eyes, feet barely making a noise.

He took the stairs because he couldn’t stand the cage-like walls of the elevators. He lived on the third floor, so hardly anyone on his floor or those above his used the staircase. It was perfect for him.

Or nearly so.

As he was watching his feet _(down one step, down another, down one step, down another)_ he failed to see someone coming up weighted by grocery bags, and they careened into one another.

It was on a landing between the lobby and the second floor, so no one fell down the stairs, just on the hard concrete pad.

“Ompf!” said the other person as they scrambled into a sitting position. “Watch where you’re going!”

“Sorry, sorry,” Bucky mumbled, hunching in on himself.

There was a pause punctuated by their soft panting. “Hey, you okay?” the other person, a male, asked softly. Bucky stole a glance from under his bangs and found a small man with a thin frame, thick glasses, a thatch of dark blonde hair, and a crease between his brows.

“I’m good,” Bucky managed. “I just…” he reached out to help the man gather his groceries in an attempt to make amends. His hands were trembling badly.

“Hey, hey, hey,” the guy said. “I need you to breathe for me.”

Bucky wanted to laugh because he had been doing nothing _but_ breathe for the last hour, trying to work up the courage to see Sam for their session.

“Hey, hey, look at me, look at me breathing.”

Bucky stole another glance up, shaking his hair out of his eyes as he did so. The man sucked in a breath of surprise, his pupils dilating slightly, and Bucky wondered just how awful he looked. Nonetheless, he focused on the man’s chest, on the rise and fall of his lungs encased in flesh.

“I’m real sorry for snapping,” the man said, his deep voice gentled into something nicer. “It’s just been a long day, y’know? I had this amazing commission from a client, but when I went to my studio to meet ‘em, get more details, they blew me off, tellin’ me they found someone else, someone better.”

“That’s rough,” Bucky managed to say. The man hummed under his breath, and Bucky listened to the man’s even tones, marred slightly by a faint wheezing. It helped steady him, this stranger’s rambling.

“—I mean, they wanted something like the cover art for _Spring Shower_ d I’m the one who _did_ those covers, so I’m not sure what they want if—”

“What?” Bucky broke in.

“Oh,” the man ducked his head. “Um. I, uh, drew the covers for _Spring Showers._  
The Black Widow Publishing company got ahold of me. I just thought it was another commission…”

“No, no, I mean, great,” Bucky said. “B-but _Spring Showers?_ ”

“Yeah.” The man’s eyes gentled. “I didn’t think it was gonna be as big as it was, but I can’t say ‘m surprised. I really enjoyed readin’ it. I hope there’s a sequel on its way.”

“I have to go,” Bucky blurted out before scrambling to his feet and rushing up the stairs, three at a time, all the way back up to the third floor. He spared a brief thought for the man, with his scattered groceries and his soothing narrative, but Bucky’s mind shot past it, looping and twisting and running itself ragged trying to figure out _what the hell?_

The next two hours found Bucky sitting in front of his barely-used laptop, the one Nat got him two months ago, the one that had remained unopened save for the initial set up Nat guided him through.

The cover of the book—of _his_ book—sat in front of him on the screen. A character that was probably Nick stood below the title, boldly looking at the reader, a challenge in his eyes. Behind him stood Markos, Helen, Autumn, May, and Julios, each standing strong. The background was a watercolor of dull greys and greens, a city in the background; it was the apocalyptic earth the Bucky had spent hours upon hours thinking up. The cover was stunning, truly. If that guy had really drawn it, then he was talented as all get out.

 _Nevada Miles_ was the author name. Bucky wondered how Nat came up with it.

It had been published in 2014, when Bucky was drugged up and in pain. It had been _published._ People _read_ it and _liked_ it and…

There were forums, fanart, fanfiction, articles, reviews, YouTube videos, a fucking _movie_ coming out…

People wanted more, they wanted more, they wanted something from him, they wanted and wanted and wanted and wanted and—

The front door slammed open and Bucky startled, crooking his knees and hugging the laptop closer. Nat stood in the doorway, gaze icy, fists clenched.

“What have you been doing.”

Bucky shrinks away from her anger, a small keening building in the back of his throat.

Nat forced in a breath and unclenched her fists.

“I’m sorry,” she said, too clipped to be calm. “You weren’t answering your phone. Sam called me. We were worried.”

“I’m sorry,” Bucky said in a small voice. “I just…”

Nat moved in tiny motions; a small step forward, minimal movement to close the door, another step forward, closer and closer, each movement projected so that Bucky could see it, anticipate it.

“What happened?” Nat asked once she was standing next to the couch. Bucky flickered his eyes to the empty couch seat and she sat down.

Bucky licked his lips. “I ran into someone on the stairwell and they mentioned a book. _Spring Showers._ ”

Nat closed her eyes for a moment, her nostrils flaring. “I would have told you.”

Bucky didn’t have enough energy to be mad. He didn’t have enough energy for much, these days. The world was a dull thing, filled with washed out colors and everything required so _much_ of him. He just wanted to sleep and never wake up.

Nat was the person who kept him going. He had to repay her for her kindness. For her love.

“I know,” he heard himself say. “But I … I didn’t think it’d get published.”

“I own the company,” Natasha said. “I spent a year or so editing it. I submitted it. I got it through. It became a hit.”

“A big hit,” Bucky said meekly.

“I wasn’t expecting it,” Nat admitted. “I mean, it wasn’t an overnight success. It just … Bucky, you have to understand. I thought you were gone. Dead. That book was your dream, and I needed it to be realized. For my sake. You were _dead._ ”

Her voice had gone odd; choked and hoarse, but Bucky suspected any attempts at comfort would be outright reject. He settled on saying, “Thank you.”

Nat nodded, clasping her hands on her lap tight enough the knuckles went white.

“People are asking for a sequel,” Bucky ventured.

“I left it open-ended.”

“Why?”

Nat glanced away. “Just in case.”

Bucky nodded, even though she couldn’t see him. Natasha didn’t ask if he was writing a sequel and he didn’t offer the information.

 

*

He rescheduled with Sam so that he had a therapy session with Percy in the morning and Sam in the late afternoon. When he went out, he once again took the stairs, though he paid more attention to his surroundings this time around. He ran into no one, and he wasn’t sure if he was relieved or not.

He hadn’t even said goodbye to the man. He didn’t even know his name.

(He’d found it online later, on the Wiki page for his book. It was Steve. “Steve” meant “something that surrounds or encompasses. A crown, a wreath, an honor and reward,” which he knew because he’d once been a writer who needed a crap ton of names for his characters. Bucky looked over Steve’s bio, but there wasn’t much.)

His sessions went well, Bucky thought, and the day passed in a blur, as they all did these days.

And so, Bucky lived on.

 

*

The next time he ran into Steve, it was nearly a week and a half later. Bucky was going up, this time, and Steve down. They paused on the same landing as last time, looking at one another.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky choked out, averting his eyes and hunching his shoulders. “I just. You said something and I—”

“You don’t gotta explain yourself,” Steve said.

Bucky shook his head half-heartedly. “I was rude. I’m just.” The words weren’t coming, and Bucky took a deep breath, measuring them to the earworm in his head: _Ah Brooklyn Brooklyn take me in / Are you aware the shape I'm in / My hands they shake my head it spins / Ah Brooklyn Brooklyn take me in…_ He felt his breath evening out, his heart slowly to a more normal rhythm.

“It’s okay,” Steve said firmly once Bucky nodded his head unconsciously, his distressed expression smoothing over slightly. “I get it. You’re having a rough time.”

“I shoulda at least helped you with your groceries.”

“I’m fine.” There was a defensiveness in Steve’s voice now, and Bucky vaguely remembered the hostile words Steve had first sent his way.

“I just.”

Bucky needed to stop saying that, but he couldn’t find the words, couldn’t form the sentences.

“Hey.” Steve didn’t move, but something in his tone dragged Bucky’ gaze up. The blue eyes behind the thick square glasses were compassionate, kind. “It’s okay.”

Bucky swallowed and looked away, fighting to keep the tears away.

“How far up’s your apartment?”

“Third floor,” Bucky said automatically.

“C’mon, then.” When Bucky looked up, Steve had turned, poised to head up the stairs.

“You were going down,” Bucky said.

“And now I’m going up.” Steve smiled. “C’mon, let me at least walk you to your floor.”

“Thought the phrase was ‘walk you to your door.’”

“Didn’t think we were at that stage yet.” Steve’s smile transformed into a grin, but it was one bellied by humor, so Bucky returned it with a hesitant smile.

“Nowhere near it,” he confirmed as Steve ducked his head, a red tinge to his cheeks. Steve stepped to the side as Bucky shuffled forward and pressed himself against the rails, as far from Steve as he could get without falling down the stairwell. Steve seemed unbothered by this, simply moving to the other side of the stairs and starting up them.

They were quiet as they climbed, but Bucky didn’t feel the need to break the silence. Their pounding feet and slightly panting provided enough of a break from the terrifying _silence_ that Bucky could deal.

They stopped at the third-floor landing and Steve looked over at Bucky. “Have a great rest of your day.”

Not likely, but Bucky appreciated the sentiment. “You too.”

Steve nodded, smiled, and headed back down the stairs while Bucky let himself onto his hallway and to his door.

 

*

“What’s wrong with him?” Nat demanded. The terrified woman next to her clutched at Nat’s hand, and Bucky thought she looked somewhat familiar, but he couldn’t _place_ her.

“It seems as though there’s been some memory damage,” the doctor said. “We aren’t sure if it’s related to his post-traumatic stress disorder or if it’s a mental block or retrograde…”

“How can you find out?” the strange woman asked sharply.

“We’ll need to do more tests,” the doctor said, casting Bucky an apologetic glance. “We just don’t know.”

 

*

Bucky sank to the floor, back to the door, once he got inside and away from Steve’s concerned gaze. His mind was buzzing, filled with golden hair and blue eyes.

Bucky covered his mouth to muffle his sobs.

_Broken…_

 

*

The strange woman was his sister, Rebecca.

Bucky had to be told her name. To this day, he remembers her only in snippets of blurred colors and faint, warm laughs. This causes her pain, he knows, and it’s one of the reasons she didn’t move back to Brooklyn from New Jersey, where she lives now with her family. Bucky doesn’t have the energy to mind this. She visits twice a month and that is enough for him right now.

Sometimes she takes him to the graveyard where their parents and two sisters lay. The first time they went had been at Bucky’s behest. The grey stone markers were bare of warmth and Bucky felt no connection to them. They remained, to him, only a reminder of how much he had lost.

(Mentally he adds cars to the list of things he's wary of. The list keeps getting longer.)

He wonders if he'll ever remember his sister. He hopes he does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Steve's here! He'll get more time in the later chapters, I promise. Also, I have never been in Bucky's situation, so I'm making a lot of this up. If there's anything you'd like to discuss with me, please let me know. My main focus in this fic is onethingconstant's prompt, but if there is anything you think I ought to expand on, I'm willing to edit my chapters.
> 
> Warnings: Suicidal thoughts, night terrors, flashbacks to torture.
> 
> Comments (nudge nudge wink wink) and kudos are greatly appreciated. I really love this story and would absolutely LOVE your feedback.


	3. A Day for You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! A chapter. I'm traveling tomorrow, so I'm just gonna leave this here.
> 
> Welcome 2017! If you're anything like 2016, I'm gonna do a Steve and fight you.
> 
> Disclaimer: Not mine, not mine, not mine, and didn't I mention? Not. Mine.
> 
> Title is "If I Had Words" from the movie Babe. I love it. So much. Also, if it doesn't just describe how Steve and Bucky want for each other, I'll eat my hat.
> 
> Enjoy!

Bucky was staring at the ceiling, watching the shadows and the faint flecks of dust motes, when a knock on the door sounded.

He didn’t move, at first, not until the knock came again.

That meant it wasn’t Nat on the other side. Bucky hadn’t really had any other visitors and the thought of having one now makes his stomach clench unpleasantly. Still, he got up and crossed slowly to the door before looking through the peephole. On the other side stood Steve, his stance relaxed and his hands shoved in his pockets. There was a small canvas messenger bag slung across his body. Steve’s head was tilted at an angle as he looked down at the door knob, his expression calm. Bucky could see a hearing aid in his ear.

“Hello?”

Bucky’s voice was just loud enough that Steve could hear him, and, as Bucky watched, Steve’s face split into an enormous grin.

“Hey,” Steve called back. “I’ve been knocking on all the doors trying to find you. I wanted to know if you were interested in going outside and watching the sunlight.”

Bucky hesitantly unlocked the door and pulled it open a crack. “What?”

“There’s a grove of trees on the complex,” Steve explained as his eyes focused on Bucky. Bucky felt off-kilter under their gentle intensity. “And a few benches. I like to draw there when I need to get some sun, and I was wondering if you’d like to join me. It’s just in front of our apartment, and the place I like to sit is situated near some bushes so people can’t see me real well.”

Bucky chewed on his lip as he thought about it and … Well, Steve said it wasn’t far away. Here was the perfect chance to tell Nat that he actually talked to someone who wasn’t one of his therapists... Bucky spoke before he could change his mind: “Can I … Can I bring some music?”

“Of course,” Steve said.

Bucky closed the door and locked it before striding over to his iPod, the headphones coiled next to the player, and picked it up. He unplugged the device and tucked it and the earbuds into the pockets of his sweatpants. He headed back to the door before he could second-guess himself and back out.

He didn’t know why he was doing this, but he remembered the stairwell, where it was usually silent, and how, with Steve, the _silence_ became _quiet,_ something that was somehow more manageable and restful.

Steve was still on the other side of the door, despite Bucky’s rather abrupt closing of it. He had taken a few steps back, however, and so when Bucky slipped through and quickly shut the door, locking it with his key, he didn’t bump into him.

Steve was smiling when Bucky turned back to look at him, peering at the shorter man through his bangs. Maybe it was just the light, but he thought Steve might had a pink tinge to his cheeks.

“What is it?” Steve asked, a funny half-smile on his face.

“D-did you really knock on all the doors to get to mine?” Bucky wasn’t too far away from the stairs, but there were still eight doors between his apartment and the stairwell.

Steve shrugged. “Yeah. Only a few answered; most shouted at me to ‘go the fuck away.’”

Bucky made a noise that was reminiscent of a snort. “Sounds like people. New York people.”

“Yeah,” Steve agreed as he started off down the hallway, Bucky haunting his steps though a few paces behind. “I grew up in Brooklyn, so I’m used to it.”

“I did, too,” Bucky offered. “Red Hook, seedier part. You?”

“Coney Island,” Steve said.*

“Yikes,” Bucky muttered under his breath.

“Yeah,” Steve said. “But I got some pretty good work straight outta high school, which helped me take some classes and get a somewhat decent living.”

“Good for you,” Bucky murmured as they entered the stairwell and began heading down. Once again Bucky plastered himself to the inside railing and Steve moved to the opposite side.

“So, what are you listening to?” Steve asked, nodding downwards in the vague direction of his pocket full of iPod.

Bucky blinked and shook his hair into his eyes. “I don’t remember. I just need the background noise.”

“Okay,” Steve said. “If you want, I’ve got some awesome playlists I don’t mind sharing. Also, there’s Pandora.”

“Maybe.” Bucky shot Steve a strained smile, and Steve returned it, wide and open, before switching subjects.

“I’ve been commissioned to do another book cover series.” Steve’s smile morphed into something relaxed and happy, and Bucky felt his own lips twitch in response. “It’s not as widely-known as _Spring Showers,_ but I think it’ll be good. I’ve read it, and it has potential.”

“What’s it about?”

Steve’s explanation lasted them out through the lobby and outside. Bucky focused on Steve’s voice and ignored anyone he spotted in his peripherals. The sun was warm on Bucky’s face as he momentarily turned it skywards, eyes closed against the light. Bucky hadn’t even realized they had stopped moving until a cloud drifted across the sun, the cool shadow startling Bucky’s eyes open again. Steve was looking out at the traffic, ever patient.

“Sorry,” Bucky said.

Steve refocused on Bucky. “It’s no problem. Want to continue?”

Bucky nodded and followed Steve around the corner of the building. The apartment complex they lived in had five buildings—A, B, C, D, and E. Steve and Bucky lived in D, but from the bench Steve settled down on, he could see the other four. His back was to a low wall that shielded the park area from a small skate park. Steve had chosen this bench well.

“So here we are,” Steve announced as he patted the seat next to his thigh, an absentminded _pat-pat._ Bucky sat down on the bench, but as far from Steve as he could. He looked up to see Steve shooting him a vaguely embarrassed look.

“What?” Bucky asked.

“I just realized I don’t know your name,” Steve admitted.

“Oh.” Bucky didn’t wonder why introductions hadn’t occurred to him; he knew Steve’s name, so actually introducing himself had slipped his mind. Slipped his memory.

_(Broken…)_

He shook himself slightly and shot Steve a tight smile. “It’s Bucky.”

“Nice to meet you, Bucky.” Steve didn’t offer Bucky his hand to shake, for which Bucky was grateful. “I’m Steve.”

Bucky opened his mouth, but the words wouldn’t come. He settled for nodding his head and looking down at his lap.

The sun beat down on his neck, comfortably warm. Bucky was going to get sunburned; his skin was pasty white with a somewhat unhealthy yellow tinge. He had been taking vitamins but Bucky relished the feel of the sun against his skin. The burn would be worth it.

Steve had taken out a sketchbook and a case of pencils and was already outlining the grove of trees that sat thirty yards away from them in the middle of the complex. There was a small duck pond near the trees filled with water but empty of ducks.

Bucky pulled out his earbuds and plugged them in, pressing the play button when he found the music paused and settled back, watching the wind rustle through the leaves of the trees.

 

*

From: Natasha (08:56 PM)

_how did u run out of milk so quick? do u drink it out of the bottle?!_

 

*

Bucky and Steve started going to the bench every couple of days. Steve would knock on Bucky’s door twice with a pause between each knock and Bucky would answer even if it was just to tell Steve he wasn’t up for it that day. Between those sunshine sessions (as Bucky called them in the privacy of his head), his therapy sessions, and the fact that Nat was now dragging him out to go grocery shopping with her, Bucky was getting out of his apartment a lot. Far more than he was used to.

It was soothing, knowing that at least one of the people he left his apartment for wanted to see him willingly.

Percy, Sam, and Michele were great, but they were paid. Nat was helping him because … it was complicated. Bucky didn’t know why, but for him at least, it was because the connection between him and Nat was still one of love and respect, just soured and warped by time and distance.

(To Bucky, time and distance were the two greatest foes to a human being. Time dulled everything, eventually, and distance wrought apathy and numbness. They suffocated him, his very existence was their reminder to him that nothing was permanent, nothing stayed, all things faded ... He faded.)

Steve, though, had no such obligations and had had a terrible first introduction with Bucky and had therefore all the reason in the world to ignore Bucky for the rest of his life.

Instead, he had sought Bucky out, even though he had seen how fucked up Bucky was.

Bucky didn’t have the words to tell Steve how much that meant to him.

 

*

“It’s not much,” Steve said, embarrassment coloring his tone.

Bucky gazed down at the sketch of the day where he himself was the centerpiece. In the drawing, Bucky was sitting on the bench, one leg tucked under the other, earbuds firmly plugged in. His expression was distant and there was something inherently sad in the way his entire face seemed downturned and worn. He looked older than his twenty-eight years, and his entire body screamed his exhaustion.

“It’s amazing,” Bucky murmured.

Steve sighed through his nose. “I should’ve asked your permission.”

“You have it,” Bucky mumbled, glancing at Steve shyly out of the corner of his eye.

Steve laughed nervously, scratching at his forehead. “I guess. I just thought it might be something nice. You were so still.”

Bucky tangled his fingers together. “Just thinking.”

“Oh? What about?”

“I get nightmares,” Bucky said, quickly and softly, half-hoping Steve wouldn’t hear him.

As if Bucky could be so lucky. Steve’s face fell and Bucky felt bad.

“I get them sometimes, too,” Steve offered quietly. “Mostly ‘bout my ma.”

Bucky’s heart ached. They sat in silence for a few moments, Bucky’s eyes tracing the slightly smudged graphite lines of his sketched, papery face. His breathing shallowed slightly as fear crept along his spine _for no reason, damnit, it was just_ Steve…

“Bucky?” Steve asked softly.

He needed Steve to talk in his soothing, deep voice. Bucky cast him mind about for a question, but he just blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “What’s your greatest fear, Steve?”

Bucky winced. _Wow,_ he thought bitterly. _Fucked up, much?_

But Steve’s brow furrowed as he seriously considered the question. “I dunno … Maybe not doing enough for people, not helping enough. Failing others, I guess. Want me to ask you what’s yours?”

 _Is this guy for real?_ The thought drifted through Bucky’s head even as he responded automatically, “It used to be falling. I’d have these dreams where I’d fall down into complete darkness and I didn’t know when I was going to land or if there was even a bottom to land. Maybe I’d just fall forever … But recently I think it’s changed.”

Steve looked somber, but not horrified like Bucky had thought he would. “What’s it changed to? If you don’t mind me asking,” he added quickly.

_(Broken…)_

“Shattering,” Bucky said, feeling strangely divorced from his words. “I shatter.”

 

*

Bucky’s chest was heaving, tears and snot mixed with one another as he fought for air. There was _silence_ in his apartment. Where was the music? Where was … where was …

“Bucky, Bucky, I’m here.”

Nat’s face filled his vision, her lips thin with concern and her eyes flashing with a murderous worry.

“M-m-mus-s-sic,” Bucky stammered, his voice shaking so hard he just couldn’t get the words out and…

“Bucky, hey, Bucky, listen to my voice.” That was Steve. Where had Steve come from? Bucky didn’t know, because suddenly Steve was singing, voice slightly off-tune, but deep and soothing. Patient. _“If I had words to make a day for you, / I'd sing a morning golden and true / I would make this day last for all time / then fill the night deep with moonshine …”_

In the background, the score to The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey came on. It was one of Bucky’s favorite things to listen to. He remembered reading the book over and over in elementary school, thrilled at the adventures within the pages. An upside to his being … gone …, he had thought, was the fact that when he came back, there were three Hobbit movies waiting.

(His list of Good Things that Happened When Gone was a short list.)

Bucky slumped, gasping, against the couch.

“Bucky, I’m here, your friend is here.” That was Steve. Steve, who was not touching him, but sitting close enough that Bucky could tell where he was. Steve, whose voice was low and gentle. Steve, who made up the _sun_ part of the sunshine sessions.

Bucky wiped some of the tears away with his hand and dropped his head back, breathing in deep. _One in, one out. One in. One out. One in, one out._ Good.

“The iPod was out of juice,” Natasha murmured, her voice distant. Bucky couldn’t see her. He was looking up at the ceiling. He could bare to see them, suddenly. He just kept staring up, breathing. “You sure you don’t mind him listening to yours?”

“Not at all,” Steve said. “I can change it if he doesn’t like it.”

“Bucky loves _The Hobbit,_ ” Natasha said. “He’s a nerd. Was a nerd. I…”

For the first time in months (months that felt like years) Bucky heard Natasha sound unsure of herself. He knew she was unsettled: he hadn't had a breakdown like this in months. Not since the hospital.

“It’s hard, watching other people suffer,” Steve offered. “You suffer a little bit, too.”

“Who’d you lose?” Nat asked, sounding a bit more like her usual self.

“My ma.” Steve’s voice chuckled. “She was so strong, y’know? But the late-stage cancer coupled with a prolonged bout of pneumonia…”

“My condolences.”

“Thank you,” Steve said. “It was a while ago, but it’s something that stays with you. You don’t need to treat him with kid gloves. If you’re unsure, just ask.”

“I’m still here,” Bucky said, rolling his head to look at them sideways. Nat raised an eyebrow as though to say _“I acknowledge this and don’t care.”_ Steve, on the other hand, started and shot Bucky a guilty look.

Bucky looked between them both and chewed on his bottom lip. The couch cushion was pressing at an awkward angle on his face, and he was pretty sure he was going to have red marks on his face after this.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky said when the pause verged on uncomfortable. His face was covered in snot and tears. Bucky couldn’t bring himself to care.

“It’s okay,” Steve replied. Nat shrugged and looked away, towards the kitchen.

“Have you eaten anything today?” she asked.

Bucky nodded slightly. “This morning.”

“Jesus, Bucky, it’s five in the afternoon.” The look Nat shot him was withering and Bucky shrank back into the couch.

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

Nat disappeared into the kitchen, but her voice drifted back.

“So, Bucky, you made a friend.”

Bucky looked at Steve, who looked taken aback to be spoken about as though he wasn’t there.

“That’s Nat,” Bucky told him before raising his voice. “Yes.”

“How’d you meet?”

“I ran into him on the stairwell.”

Nat reappeared with a cup of applesauce and a bagel. She thrust them at Bucky, who drank the applesauce from the cup slowly.

There was a quiet that followed, the swells of music coming from the corner and the breathing from the other people in his apartment.

Bucky closed his eyes to block them from his sight, suddenly unable to stand the sight of people near him.

“So, Steve,” Nat said. “Want to go get some coffee, catch up on all the latest gossip?”

“Um…” Steve sounded uncertain.

“It’s fine,” Bucky said, and those two words cost him so much energy, which was leeching from his body, from his mind, so quickly. He just wanted them _gone_ because they were _too much_ right then.

“Steve.” Nat’s voice was sharper this time. “Come on.”

Bucky heard Steve get up and he and Nat left the apartment, though not before Nat set Bucky’s phone on the couch arm within Bucky’s reach.

Bucky watched them leave over the couch cushion, and his chest twisted with shame and guilt and regret before he heaved himself onto the couch and passed out.

 

*

Nat came back later that night, when the dark shadows stretched silkily, fighting against the single lamp bulb’s dim light. Bucky had woken up an hour ago, but hadn’t had the energy to move.

Nat opened the door without knocking and with her came the waft of soup and warm bread.

“Bucky,” she said. “Sit up.”

Bucky did so, staring at her dully. He accepted the little container of soup she offered it and shoveled it into his mouth with the little plastic spoon. He didn’t taste a thing.

Nat shredded the bread into small chunks, watching him like a hawk as he ate.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky said in the not-quite-dark.

“I know,” Nat replied. “I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and Kudos feed my soul. Please take the time to let me know if you like this story. It means a lot.
> 
> Also, I know this chapter is a bit shorter than normal, but the next one is much, much longer.
> 
> And, as always, if there is anything I didn't write well or you have an issue with, I'm happy to discuss it with you. I'm really just trying to make sure I'm writing this well, but as I have never felt what Bucky has in such depth, I'm really just hoping for the best.
> 
> *Also, Coney Island (according to my research[http://nypost.com/2013/09/26/brooklyns-rich-and-poor-nabes/]) isn't really nice to live in at the moment. Do let me know if this is correct if you can.


	4. A Song I Can’t Get Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Sorry this is so late, but I was driving in a snow storm yesterday--it's so bad my classes have been cancelled today and tomorrow. We've already got knee-deep snow and we're supposed to get more. Hopefully you all are safe and warm wherever you are!
> 
> Disclaimer: Not mine!
> 
> Chapter title is from "Bloom" by the Paper Kites.

“I’m sorry I’m so fucked up,” Bucky blurted out to Steve the next time he saw him.

Steve, startled, blinked up at him before saying, “It’s not your fault.”

Bucky scrubbed a hand down his face. “I just.” _Just._ “Did Nat tell you anything?”

Steve shook his head, his eyes wide. “No, we really did just gossip. I know more about Maria Hill’s private life than I ever wanted to know.” He made a face.

Bucky let out a breath of air that was meant to be a laugh. “Nat does that.”

Steve shrugged, his bony shoulders bouncing up and down. “You’ll tell me when you want to tell me.

“I—Nat and I used to be together.” Bucky hadn’t meant to say that. How could he mess this conversation up anymore?

“I figured.” Steve looked guilty. Why did he look guilty? “You’re both close and I mean, obviously, you could just be really good friends, but the automatic conclusion in our society is that that means you’re sleeping together and it’s so hard to escape society’s influences…”

Bucky shook himself slightly. “No, I mean, yeah, it is. But. It’s weird, now. I don’t love easily, but I love hard, and everything is just so tangled up…”

“Because you were gone?”

Bucky’s eyes fluttered shut, almost of their own accord. “Yeah.” His voice sounded brittle, fragile. “Because I was g-gone…”

“Bucky,” Steve said. “Whatever happened _was not_ your fault.”

“I know that. But it happened, and now I don’t even know…” Bucky didn’t finish his sentence. He didn’t have the words. He didn’t have the energy. This wasn’t where the conversation was supposed to come, but now he just wanted to flee back into his apartment and pass out…

Steve hoisted his messenger bag his on his shoulder. “Wanna head outside or skip today?”

“Skip, I think,” Bucky said. “I’m … tired.”

He was, Bucky realized. He was just so goddamned tired. He just wanted to sleep.

Steve nodded his acceptance and back away, smiling wide and open at Bucky who didn’t even try smiling back before shutting the door, knowing that whatever plastered itself across his face in the smile’s stead wouldn’t be a smile. He didn’t want to know what it would say—how hopeless he felt.

Steve didn’t need to see more than he already had.

 

*

 

“Hey!” Bucky looked over at Steve, sitting on the bench, his skin splattered in sunlight. He had set aside his pencils and sketchbook and had his phone out. Bucky could see the black box of a video, and Steve was positively vibrating with excitement.

“What is it?” He cautiously removed his earbuds, the music growing faint as the tiny speakers fell to his lap.

“The trailer came out,” Steve said, a wide grin tugging at his lips.

“What trailer?”

“The one for _Spring Showers,_ ” Steve replied. “I’ve been waiting ages.”

Bucky couldn’t help it; he leaned over Steve’s shoulder, ensuring they weren’t touching, as Steve pressed the play button.

_“No one remembers the days before the Freeze,”_ a voice said. “Before the world’s axis was moved straight up and the seasons disappeared.” The blackness faded until the camera was skimming over the ground, where no lush green could be seen, only ragged, hardy-looking plants and scraggy, bent trees with crumbling bark. _“But what They don’t know is that the Earth has memory—and it will fight back.”_

A few scenes flashed quickly, from a building crumbling to a person disappearing behind a flash of blinding white light to a girl crying…

_“My name is Nicholas North.”_ A man of about twenty appeared on the screen. His skin was dark, but his hair was stark white, and his eyes so pale they took on a silver sheen. He looked otherworldly. _“It’s up to me and my friends and allies to fight against those harming the Earth and restore it…”_

Epic music came on, and more scenes flickered across the screen.

Bucky tuned the words out, allowing the music to flow over him as he watched the images dance across the scene.

“That was amazing,” Steve breathed once the trailer ended. Bucky wasn’t sure what he felt, so he said nothing. He had had no part in the movie, and the thought settled uneasily in his stomach. He remembered, Before, how he had wanted to have a part in the movie if one was to ever be made. He had missed his chance, it seemed.

“I suppose,” he said.

“Have you ever read the book?” Steve asked.

“Yeah,” Bucky said. “I thought you were more of a so-so fan.”

Steve shrugged. “I don’t like to be overt about it, but there’s something powerful in it, y’know? These people have lost everything, from their families to their world, and they still got hope.”

“Hope can be cruel,” Bucky whispered.

“But it can also be incredible.” Steve slowly reached out and settled his fingers on Bucky’s wrist, stroking the tender skin. “Like Markos said: _‘Nick, you gotta have hope. If you don’t have hope, then why the fuck do anything at all? There’s literally no point then. Might as well just lie down and get trampled by COT’s tanks.’”_

“Speaking words of wisdom, huh?” Bucky asked dryly.

Steve threw back his head and laughed and laughed until Bucky was waiting anxiously for him to either take a breath or collapse from oxygen deprivation.

“But in all seriousness,” Steve said once he had taken a breath and calmed himself down slightly. “I love the book. It’s on my top ten list.”

“How far down?”

Steve snorted. “Well, does the _Harry Potter_ series count as one?”

“Yes,” Bucky decided. Steve’s fingers were still on Bucky’s wrist, and Bucky found he didn’t mind that.

“Good, ‘cause they’re one. Then there’s _Letters from the Earth, The Golden Compass, Carry On, Spring Showers_ … So it’s fifth.”

“What’re the other five?”

Steve ducked his head slightly, looking at Bucky out of the corner of his eye. “ _The Hobbit, American Gods, Watership Down, Good Omens, and The Last Unicorn._ ”

“They’re all good,” Bucky offered. “I ain’t ever read _American Gods,_ but the others are all good.”

Steve’s eyes widened. “You haven’t?”

“No,” Bucky said. “Sorry.”

“Nothing to apologize for,” Steve said. “There’re so many books out there, people don’t have time to read them all.”

There was a beat of quiet where they both looked at one another, the sound of traffic in the background.

“I’m really excited for this movie,” Steve said.

_Can I stay close to you?_ The lyrics drifted from the depths of Bucky’s mind, and he smiled at Steve’s enthusiasm, as his friend discussed Bucky’s book, unaware of what was going on in Bucky’s mind.

The thought stopped Bucky short.

_Friend._

He had made a friend, at least on his end, despite how fucked up he was.

The thought made him smile to himself, small and true.

 

*

Bucky was not looking forward to the fourth of July.

Thing was, he hadn’t even known the date until he ducked into the grocery store—finally able to go by himself three times out of four—and saw the fire crackers and the regurgitation of red, white, and blue.

Bucky slowly backed out of the store, eyes wide and breath short.

He ran into Steve outside of their apartment buildings, Steve on the phone and smiling at whoever was on the other end of the line. Bucky felt a pang in his chest, but he didn’t know why it happened or what it meant so he ignored it.

Steve saw him as Bucky walked closer and his expression brightened considerably.

“Bucky!” he called out happily, straitening his posture. “Sorry, Dum Dum, can I call you back?”

Steve grinned and tucked his phone away after ending the call and waved at Bucky even though they were only a few feet away from each other now.

What a dork, Bucky couldn’t help sending him a small smile.

“You got any plans for today?” Steve asked as he fell into step next to Bucky.

“No,” Bucky said. “I didn’t even know it was today.”

“Ah.” Steve frowned. “Are you gonna be okay?”

Bucky stared at him.

Steve hastened to explain himself, “I heard with vets the loud noises can be upsetting…”

“Oh, Jesus, no, I’m not a vet,” Bucky said. “I just guess I don’t … Parties, strangers. I’m not good with those.”

“Oh.” For some reason, Steve looked incredibly guilty. “So, I guess inviting you out would be out of the question.”

Bucky blinked. “What?”

“Not like that! It’s just, y’know, my birthday.” Steve mumbled the last part, the tips of his ears burning red.

“Oh…” Bucky looked at Steve, who wasn’t looking at him. “Where’re you going for your birthday?”

Steve glanced at him, eyebrows raised. “That’s it? People usually accuse me of lying.”

“Why? It’s a day of the year, people get born on it, same as any other day of the year.” Bucky held open the lobby doors for Steve.

“I know, but it still happens. And I was planning on taking a couple of my friends out for dinner or something. There’s this one place ‘bout a mile away, sells the greatest tiramisu I ever tasted. My ma used to take me…”

“I can come,” Bucky said tentatively.

Steve positively _lit up,_ beaming at Bucky so hard Bucky was afraid he’d snuff himself out.

“You wanna bring any of your friends?” Steve asked as they entered the stairwell and stood at the bottom of the steps, looking at each other. “I’d like to invite Nat, but I don’t have her number.”

“I could…” Bucky said. “You sure it’s okay?”

“It’s totally fine,” Steve assured him. “It was just gonna be me and Dum Dum and Jim—and Nat’s pretty cool.”

“She is,” Bucky easily agreed.

“Awesome,” Steve said. “Everyone can meet outside of this building at five, is that okay?”

“That works,” Bucky said, throat closing even as he sent Steve another small smile.

“Well, I gotta go.” Steve sent Bucky an apologetic glance. “I wanna visit my ma’s grave before tonight.”

“You want company?” Bucky’s heart beat quickly, pounding at his ribcage, and he couldn’t breathe, his throat was so clogged up.

Steve studied him for a second, smiling sadly. “Not today, but thank you for the offer.”

Bucky ducked his head in shame, hiding behind his bangs.

“Hey, no.” Steve made an abortive motion towards Bucky, but didn’t touch him. “Bucky, it’s fine. I go often, and I often go alone. You’d probably find it boring, anyway; I just talk about my day and stuff to her.”

Bucky wanted to say he didn’t think anything Steve did was boring. Bucky wanted to say he knew what it was like to stand in front of a loved one’s grave. Bucky wanted to say he was strong enough to continue facing the world, just to comfort Steve. To do something nice for him.

But in the end, he said nothing. He just offered Steve a weak wave as Steve left the stairwell with a cheerful “Goodbye!”

The door closed after him with a small _click._

 

*

Bucky milled around outside while his friends talked. On such short notice, he was able to rope Nat and Clint into the dinner, and his therapist Sam had promised to drop in, if only to see how Bucky was doing.

Nat and Clint were making small talk, and from what Bucky could see, they were at ease with one another. Natasha was relaxed in a way he hadn’t seen since his return. Clint said something that made Natasha laugh, and Clint gazed at her fondly.

Bucky wondered how long they had been in love, if they even knew they were in love. He wondered if they were together. Then he found he didn’t much care for that train of though and shifted idly to a new topic, wondering about the party, if he could take it.

“Bucky!” a familiar voice called out. Bucky turned to see his friend striding towards him, two others at his side.

The first was a tall man with a ginger-blonde mustache, a bomber jacket, and a bowler hat. His face was slightly ruddy, but from drink or a sunburn, Bucky couldn’t tell. The second was taller than Steve by a few inches with a neatly pressed, if cheap, suit on.

“This is Dum Dum—Timothy, sorry—and Jim,” Steve introduced as soon as he was standing before them.

“Natasha,” Nat said, holding out her hand to Steve’s friends, who shook it in their turn. Dum Dum winked at Nat.

“You look stunning,” he said, kind humor in his voice.

Steve and Jim rolled their eyes.

“Think she’s outta your league,” Jim said.

“You never know!” Dum Dum protested.

“Truer words have never been said.” Clint laughed and thrust out his hand. “Clint Barton.”

“Bucky,” Bucky mumbled.

“Oh, we know,” Jim assured him. “Steve ain’t been shuttin’ up about you for months now.”

“Jim,” Steve hissed, blushing.

Jim smirked, unrepentant.

“So, where is this joint?” Clint asked, clapping his hands together. “I could totally eat right now.”

“Me, too,” Dum Dum said. “Lead the way, Stevie!”

“It’s Steve,” Steve groaned, though without much heat.

The conversation as they walked in the direction to the restaurant was light-hearted and easy. Both groups quickly fell into a rhythm, chatting about this and that and not finding a whole lot to argue about. If either Dum Dum or Jim recognized Natasha as one of the rising influential figures in social politics, they made no mention of it.

Steve and Bucky found themselves walking near the back.

“Clint’s pretty cool,” Steve told him.

“He is,” Bucky agreed. “Just don’t let him bully you into watching his shows. They’re…”

“What?”

Bucky glanced at Steve from the side of his eyes. “Absorbing.”

Steve laughed and swept his brows out of his eyes. “I thought you were gonna say something like terrible!”

“They are terrible, but they’re so bad you can’t help _but_ watch them.”

“That’s ten times worse.” Steve snorted.

“I know,” Bucky murmured, fidgeting absently with his shirt cuff.

They fell into silence, listening to their friends ahead of them talk and laugh about this and that. Their silence wasn’t awkward in the least, something Bucky was quite grateful for.

Steve’s presence was … restful.

Bucky felt a little less _broken._

The restaurant, when they came to it, was a small place though quite full. People sat and chatted, and Bucky wondered if there would even be any seats left for them.

He shouldn’t have worried; as soon as Steve walked in and told the hostess his name, she led them to a large booth that would easily fit them all.

After they ordered their drinks, which appeared shortly after that, Dum Dum held up his glass of coke (telling Clint in a stage-whisper he was going to get drunk later, but didn’t want to offend Steve’s delicate sensibilities. Steve groaned and smacked Dum Dum’s arm, to the amusement of the rest of the table) and said, “A very merry birthday to Steve, crusader of the ill-fortuned and all-around standup guy!”

“Here, here!” the rest of the table said as Steve blushed and ducked his head, making embarrassed eye contact with Bucky as if trying to say, _help me out here._

Bucky smirked and took a sip of his water.

The night moved on, and it was filled with good food (Steve hadn’t been lying in the slightest) and laughter and easy conversation. Sam did drop by, giving Bucky a friendly wave and perching on the edge of the booth seat, drawn immediately into a conversation with Clint and Steve. Sam and Steve seemed to hit off like a house on fire, and Bucky felt yet another pang. Still not knowing its cause, he glanced around the table and accidentally met Natasha’s eyes.

She looked reserved, as she did nowadays. But there was something scratching behind her mask, something like comprehension and resignation. Bucky didn’t understand it, but when he quirked his eyebrow in confusion, Nat shook her head slightly and turned to join the conversation.

“You doin’ okay?”

Bucky glanced at Jim, who was sitting next to him at the booth. The man looked kindly at him, and Bucky dipped his head, hiding behind his bangs. “I’m fine,” he said.

“If you’re sure.”

They sat in silence for a beat.

“Steve looks happy around you.”

“Does he?” Bucky snuck a glance over at Steve.

“Yeah, he does.” Jim glanced over at Steve, too. “You take good care of him, alright?”

“Uh…” Bucky floundered for a second. “Okay?”

Jim studied him for a second before something clicked behind his eyes and he chuckled. _“Oh.”_

“What?” Bucky asked defensively.

“Nothing,” Jim said. “But you’re happy, right?”

Bucky shrugged.

Jim adopted a pensive look. “Yeah, you’ll be okay.”

They didn’t say anything else, and when the party broke up around seven and they were walking back, Bucky once again found himself towards the back of the group next to Steve.

Sam, who hadn’t meant to stay this long but who had found himself unable to leave, walked ahead with the rest of the group, singing some song with Clint and Dum Dum that was loud and off-key.

“Bucky?”

Bucky glanced over at Steve, whose face was pale in the setting sun. “Yeah?”

“Thank you for coming.”

Bucky snorted and reached out quickly, brushing his fingers across Steve’s wrist. Steve blinked, startled, before giving him a radiant smile.

“Thank you,” Bucky told him, as he returned his smile.

 

*

From: Natasha (12:26 AM)

_BTW, I approve of steve_

 

*

“Hey,” Steve said when Bucky answered the door. Bucky squinted at him. It was after dark, nearly eleven at night. Steve never knocked on his door this late. Behind him, his laptop hummed soft soothing notes from some symphony, its light the only thing brightening the room because Bucky hadn’t bothered to turn on any of the other lights.

“…Hi,” Bucky replied cautiously. He hadn’t seen Steve since the party a week ago; Steve had been too busy finishing up his new commission and submitting it. Steve, apparently, was a bit of a perfectionist when it came to his art. He told Bucky this when they had run into each other in the stairwell three days ago, Bucky going down and out to the store and Steve up to his apartment, his arms laden with Chinese takeout.

“So,” Steve wrung his hands absentmindedly, “I was wondering if you wanted to grab some food and go see a movie.”

Bucky squinted harder. “…What?”

“It’s just, I forgot to eat dinner,” Steve said. “So, I was hoping you’d join me, if you wanted.”

Bucky didn’t really want to go out, but it was Steve. _Steve,_ who didn’t ask questions, who accepted him and cared for him (for some reason Bucky hadn’t quite figured out yet) and who was so … special.

What the hell. Bucky couldn’t actually remember when the last time he had eaten food was, so he might as well.

(The only reason Natasha had agreed to rent out this apartment was because Bucky promised he’d take care of himself. He _needed_ to be able to take care of himself. What kind of person was he, if he couldn’t even take care of himself…?)

He nodded, and Steve visibly brightened, bouncing slightly on his heels as Bucky left his door open as he grabbed his keys, shut his laptop lid which cut the music off, and dug around the pile of empty plastic grocery bags until he found his wallet.

They were quiet as they descended the staircase and out into the brisk chill of the late spring night.

“I don’t even know what what’s around,” Bucky admitted as they trouped across the lobby.

Steve blinked at him for a second before shaking his head slightly, his bangs shifting with the motion until they were hanging in his eyes. Steve brushed them away impatiently. “Well, there’s a pizza joint not far, a Mexican restaurant around the corner, a Thai place, a few twenty-four-hour places…”

“What’s your favorite?” Bucky interjected quickly, feeling overwhelmed by the amount of options set before him.

“Well, my favorite’s closed,” Steve sighed regretfully. “But the pizza place isn’t bad.”

Bucky only had pizza a few times since he had come back, and the option sounded as appealing as everything else (which was to say—not much). He nodded at Steve, who had been watching him, and the two headed down the street patched with streetlamp light and cool grey shadows.

The pizza place was a small hole in the wall that closed at midnight, meaning they had a good forty minutes to eat. No one was there except one tired cashier, one pizza-maker, and Steve and Bucky. They snagged a booth after ordering—which just amounted to Bucky telling the cashier “same” after Steve gave his order, terrified at the prospect at having to actually talk to the woman.

“So, my friend Monty’s coming to visit,” Steve said once he had settled down. “He lives in England, right now, in Bristol.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, he came over here for a semester my Junior year, was on my floor—”

“I want to tell you,” Bucky blurted out.

Steve blinked at him. “What?”

Bucky looked at the table. “I didn’t mean to interrupt you, I’m sorry.”

“Bucky,” Steve said, his tone firm. “It’s okay.”

Bucky still didn’t look up. “I want to—to tell you. What happened. To me.”

“Okay,” Steve said. His tone was even and calm, soothing Bucky’s shattered nerves.

The words, when they came out of his mouth, were muffled to Bucky’s ears, as if they were spoken from a great distance. “When I was … When I was twenty-two, back in 2010 I was … taken. By a man named Armin Zola. He kept me, tortured me, experimented on me…”

The words poured out, as much an unending flood as his writing had once been. Bucky barely noticed the waitress come over with their pizza. He didn’t touch the food, instead letting the words come out in a rush, a sizzling, messy gush of words where he didn’t complete his sentences and he didn’t pay attention to if they made any sense.

Steve listened. His face was achingly compassionate and calm. He didn’t eat, either, just sipped occasionally from his glass of water.

It was nearing closing time by the time Bucky finally wound down, suddenly more exhausted then he ever remembered feeling before.

It was a blur, the next few moments. There was Steve talking in a low voice to the waitress, whose eyes were creased with age and sleepless nights. There was Steve gently cajoling Bucky into eating a slice of pizza. There was Steve walking next to him as Bucky stumbled across a crosswalk. There was the lobby of his apartment building, big and light and impossible to hide in. There was his front door, a soft voice, his couch.

It all went dark.

 

*

Steve visited Bucky noon the next day when Bucky, who had been thrust into consciousness by Zola’s gentle, poisonous voice after five restless hours, had been up for hours doing nothing in particular.

Steve’s usual knock sounded, and that was when Bucky remembered last night, the fall of words spat from his mouth in an uncontrollable stream. For a moment, he almost didn’t open the door, but Steve hadn’t run away, had he? And if he was there to condemn Bucky, to blame him, then…

Bucky didn’t think about that. He didn’t know what he’d do.

He opened the door.

Steve stood there, his posture as open (and simultaneously braced for a fight) as it always was.

“Bucky,” Steve said, his voice calm and concerned. “Did you … did you sleep well?”

“As well as I ever do,” Bucky replied hoarsely. There was a beat of _silence._ “Do you want to come in?”

Bucky didn’t really want Steve to come into his apartment, but he stepped aside all the same when Steve nodded.

“Look,” Steve said as soon as Bucky shut the door. “I’m not gonna tell anyone, I swear. But I want you to know, Buck, that what happen wasn’t your fault and I’m still here. I’m still your friend.”

Bucky’s back hit the door and he sank to the floor. He tried to summon up enough energy to feel something, whether it be rage at himself for spilling his sob story to Steve or guilt for sharing such a horror with one of his only friends. He couldn’t feel that, though. He just felt tired. Bucky closed his eyes.

“Bucky.” There was Steve’s voice, now at Bucky’s level as he heard Steve crouch down, huffing out a breath as his bad back protested at the movement. “Are you okay?”

“As okay as always.”

He heard Steve adjust himself, trying to find a comfortable position.

“What are you feeling right now, Bucky?”

“Tired,” Bucky managed.

Steve let out a slow, measured breath. “Just tired?”

Bucky made a small noise in the back of his throat before tilting his head in a nod.

“Bucky. Look at me for one moment.”

Bucky forced his eyes open. They were so _heavy…_

Steve sat in front of him. His blonde hair flopped in front of his blue eyes, which were still behind the square glasses with their blue-red frames. He was wearing a patched-up flannel over a faded comic T-Shirt. Wonder Woman’s face was almost gone, the colors dwindled with age. His jeans were dark blue and just as worn as everything else Steve wore. His thick, sturdy boots were slightly newer, though the ends of the laces were fraying away.

Bucky’s heart yearned to crawl over there and tuck his face into the crook of Steve’s neck, until, if he opened his eyes, Steve’s skin was the only thing he could see, he could smell, he could feel.

Steve studied him with kind and caring eyes.

“Bucky,” Steve said, dragging Bucky back to the moment. “How long has it been since you got back?”

“Seven months,” Bucky responded automatically.

Steve let out a soft, surprised breath.

Bucky waited for Steve to gather his thoughts, letting his eyes idly trace over Steve’s features, spotting the occasional freckle, the small silvery scars from past fights and clumsiness.

“Bucky,” Steve said. He looked so earnest, eyes wide. “There is nothing I can do to help you except be here for you, however you need it.”

“You’ve already done so much,” Bucky said. “I’m just.” _Just._ “Overwhelmed easily. Tired. I’m so _tired_ Steve…”

Steve scooted closer, close enough that Bucky to touch him if he wanted to. Could lean in and bury his face in Steve’s skin and never see the light of day again and just _sleep,_ listening to the quiet of Steve’s heartbeat, secure in knowing Steve would never let anything happen to him.

“I know,” Steve said quietly, and Bucky couldn’t stop his hand from reach out, clutching at Steve’s shirt, pulling himself closer to the smaller man until he tucked himself into the crook of Steve’s neck. Steve’s skin was rougher than Nat’s, he was thinner than even Nat, but it covered Bucky’s face and Steve smelled like soap and paint and sunlight and when Bucky opened his eyes, all he could see was Steve.

Bucky couldn’t stop crying. He was ruining Steve’s shirt. Steve’s skin shone with water and snot, but Bucky couldn’t stop and Steve just held him closer and hummed softly in Bucky’s ear and Bucky _couldn’t stop…_

 

*

Nat visited him the next day and settled on one side of the couch. Bucky took the other. Their unspoken arrangement. There had once been a time where they would have snuggled close, curled up until Bucky wouldn’t know which hand was his, which was Nat’s.

“Bucky,” Nat said evenly. “What is Steve to you?”

Bucky blinked at her. “A friend?”

But that wasn’t quite right. Best friend? Or was that Nat? Could a person even have two best friends? Would that negate the “best” part?

Nat was studying him when he came out of his ruminating, and Bucky shrunk a little under her gaze.

Whatever Natasha saw, she said nothing, merely sighed and leaned back against the cushion, launching into a rant about the incompetent people employed at ASED.

Before she left, she murmured to him, “Love is a complex, multifaceted thing, James. Don’t forget that, and don’t let it get in your way.”

“Okay…” Bucky said cautiously.

 

*

Steve invited Bucky out to lunch later that day, at three in the afternoon when the lunch rush was long over but when it was too early for the dinner rush. Bucky accepted, and they went out to one of the twenty-four-hour diners. The food wasn’t bad, but when Bucky looked over at Steve, who was laughing at something Bucky had said, eyes lit up and soft, open and caring and so _Steve…_

That something that sparked in his chest by Nat fell into place. Bucky didn’t know what it was, but as he looked at Steve and the way the dusty sunlight glinted off Steve’s hair and the way his tendons moved under his skin as he picked up his fork, he thought it was something good.

 

*

That something good helped focus Bucky. For the first time since Before, Bucky felt awake, alive like he hadn’t in years. The perpetual exhaustion still lingered in his bones, but Bucky looked out at the world and felt that something in his chest hum.

He just needed a _spark._

This came three days after speaking with Nat and eating with Steve, when Bucky was with Sam Wilson, his PTSD therapist.

“How has your week been, Bucky?” Sam asked once Bucky was settled in the armchair.

Bucky liked Sam. He was calm and serene, intelligent and kind. He hoped Sam and Steve stayed in contact. He remembered that just before Sam left their group to head back to his own life, he, Steve, Jim, Clint, and Dum Dum had all exchanged numbers.

“I’ve been fine,” Bucky said, and for the first time he might have actually meant it.

Sam must have caught onto Bucky’s truthfulness somehow, because he broke into a wide grin. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Bucky said. “I’ve been … I’ve been feeling more awake. More aware, I think.”

Sam nodded. “I’m glad to hear that, Bucky.”

“I don’t know how to channel it,” Bucky said, his words tumbling over themselves like they hadn’t since the Incident. He blinked, startled at himself.

Sam was watching him carefully. “Maybe you might want to write down what you’re feeling,” the therapist offered. “It doesn’t need to be long, just a few sentences. Just to get it out.”

Bucky nodded, and they slipped into their normal session, Bucky more relaxed and centered than he had been in a long while.

But that was his spark.

 

*

When he got back to his apartment, he dug out his computer which had sat undisturbed for over a week and pulled up an empty word document.

His fingers hesitated over the keys, his eyes blinking against the white glare of the screen.

Suddenly, without warning, he was writing.

_Nicholas North had no idea how he had reached this point in his life where he was one of the few who could save their world. Markos joked about it, but Nicholas knew Markos wondered the same thing, he could see it in his friend’s eyes… With the first Clue solved, Nicholas knew May would be jumping to find and solve the next Clue of the Seasons, but he had more pressing matters on his hand: Helen wished to meet with the Council of Technology, a meeting that would take place in twenty days’ time and he knew it was all a trap, though Helen denied it…_

 

*

After that, it was as if a floodgate had opened.

Natasha’s edited ending of _Spring Showers_ gave Bucky more than enough room to work with: after all, it had always been his intention to write more in his series.

He didn’t worry about grammar or how good it was. He just wrote, and he wrote as if his life depended on it. The words were pulled from him, and sometimes he had to pause, catch his breath, and then, fingers twitching, he’d get pulled back in.

His computer was hooked up to his charger continually after it died twice in a row because he ignored the battery warnings.

Nat came by a few times and watched him. He barely acknowledged her presence, seized with the desire to write and write and write and—

Steve had been surprised when Bucky brought his laptop with him on their next session, but politely ignored Bucky’s frantic typing as he sketched on one of his commissions and Bucky bobbed his head in unconscious time with the music as his fingers flew across the keyboard. He ignored misspelled words, incomplete sentences, he just needed to get it all down, to let it all out…

Bucky poured his heart into his story, let everything he thought about in the long silences of his captivity flood out and onto the screen.

It felt as if he was finding himself again, when the sun beat down on his neck and Steve, with his delicate, quick fingers, settled next to him.

It felt as if he was rediscovering his magic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos really help, guys. Please take the time to give me feedback.
> 
> As always, I'm more than happy to discuss anything with you so long as you're polite and courteous.
> 
> This is unbeat'd, so if there's anything I missed in my own editing, do let me know!


	5. It's Still Dark Outside

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh ... Hope you guys like this chapter. Next chapter's the last. Please let me know how I did.
> 
> Disclaimer: I own the characters about as much as I own _Harry Potter_ \--that is to say, not at all.
> 
> Title is from "Best of Wives, Best of Women" from _Hamilton_. Deal with it.

The next few months passed in a blur, as time was wont to do for Bucky these days. His therapists helped him until they had referred him to a more general therapist, deeming Bucky was mentally healthy enough to cope without their specialties on a consistent basis. Bucky and Steve grew closer, and he and Nat still found time to talk.

And Bucky kept writing.

He wrote and wrote, the words coming faster than he could type them.

“ _Why do you write like you’re running out of time?_ ” Steve sang at him after a week of his sudden flurry of writing, which continued without an end in sight.

Bucky hadn’t gotten the reference, which led to Steve taking his iPod and uploading _Hamilton_ onto it.

Bucky listened to it on repeat as he wrote.

_The man was non-stop…_

 

*

The movie about Bucky’s book came out in August, and Steve dragged Bucky to the first showing the day after. They went to a little run-down theater near them, ensconced themselves in the back where no one else sat, and waited through the previews. Steve roped long twists of Twizzlers into his mouth while Bucky sipped at his water, giving a barely-there laugh when Steve turned to him to show him his new long, red mustache and fangs stuck under his upper lip.

When the theater darkened completely, Steve immediately sat still and stared at the screen; silent, waiting.

Bucky watched Steve, at first, but when the titles came on, his curiosity got the better of him and he focused instead on the screen.

He wondered how well they did.

 

*

It wasn’t what he had wanted.

Bucky was silent as they left the theater, though Steve didn’t seem to notice, babbling on as he was about how _amazing_ it was and how it was exactly what he had hoped and all Bucky could think about was how there was something _wrong._

He just didn’t know what.

He didn’t notice the people around him or the words that Steve was uttering or the cars that were jammed too close. He didn’t see the sunlight, didn’t feel the wind, didn’t hear the city life.

“Bucky?”

Bucky jolted and stopped before he ran into Steve, who had swung around until he was in front of Bucky and was now watching him with concern.

Bucky shook himself. “Sorry, what?”

“I asked if you liked the movie,” Steve said cautiously.

Bucky was still dazed, partly not there, which was why he answered truthfully: “No.”

Shock colored Steve’s expression before one of curiosity replaced it. “Why not?”

“It wasn’t want the author wanted,” Bucky mumbled.

Steve started to look defensive. “Miles chose not to interfere with the movie, and no one has ever met the guy. How would you know what he did or did not want?”

Bucky wished he could sleep. It was a thought that hadn’t crossed his mind in a long time. “I just … It wasn’t what I had hoped for. There was something missing.”

“There was nothing missing,” Steve said. “I’ve read that book a dozen times. That was one of the better book-to-movie transitions I’ve seen. They did mess up the introduction of Julio, but I’m sure they had a reason…”

“No, just.” Bucky ran a hand through his hair. It was getting long again, but he couldn’t find it in him to care. Just so long as it wasn’t like the cut Rumlow had always given him…

His throat began closing up.

“Bucky,” Steve said. “It’s okay if you didn’t like the movie. You don’t have to like it—”

“For fuck’s sake, Steve, will you just fucking drop it?” Bucky shouted.

Steve closed his mouth, startled and hurt. Bucky blinked, panic and guilt clawing at his insides.

“I’ve got to go,” Bucky mumbled through numb lips before spinning around and running across the street, away from Steve, away from the cloud of hurt and pain he had caused.

He _just_ couldn’t fucking deal.

 

*

Bucky locked himself away, after that. After sending out a text to Nat telling her he was writing and didn’t want to be disturbed for a few days, he turned his attention to his writing and his writing alone.

Steve knocked on his door the morning after Bucky’s explosion, but Bucky ignored him even though Steve stayed there, knocking, for fifteen minutes.

Steve kept coming.

Each time Bucky wanted to answer the door, but he remembered the shock and hurt that had scrawled across Steve’s face, the uncertainty and the hesitation he could hear in the knocks, and Bucky began to twist his narrative.

_There sits Bucky,_ he snarled to himself, _fucked up, unfixable, and there stands Steve, a being of sunlight and compassion, and Bucky ruins it, because that’s what he does._

_“Such a good little pet,”_ murmured Zola’s voice, soft and deadly.

Bucky crooned to himself, alone at his computer screen, skin sticky with sweat and dirt, shoulders hunched in.

_My little pet…_

Bucky wrote faster, trying to keep Zola at bay with his words, with the magic he could spin.

But Zola was real. Words were fiction.

Zola’s voice stayed with him.

It wasn’t until three days later Steve finally seem to give up, and Bucky tried not to fall apart.

Steve had, apparently, finally realized what a catastrophe Bucky was and realized this was his chance to be rid of him. Served Bucky right, and Steve deserved better. Steve deserved the _world._

So instead he wrote, and turned up his music to drown out Zola’s voice and tried not to think about how much he missed the sunlight and _Steve…_

 

*

There _was_ something missing. Something was cracking through his writing, trying to get out. Bucky didn’t know what it was, but he let the words shape themselves on the pages until he realized what it was, after he had written it out on the screen, there for him to see.

 

*

When Bucky was twenty, he realized he loved Natasha Romanoff. He had known he liked her as more than a friend since he was seventeen, but for him, loving a person meant there needed to be a strong bond, a bond unlike the others in his life. He didn’t form crushes, he never talked about who he liked or didn’t like, because for him, there were only one person in the world he could ever imagine being with, and Natasha had been it for him.

He had laid himself bare to her, all of his faults and darkest secrets, and she had seen him in his entirety and loved him anyways.

Bucky remembered being twenty, red-faced as Nat stood in front of him, an eyebrow cocked as she waited for him to take her out on a date. He remembered thinking about how something had _shifted,_ there was this, this _feeling_ in his chest that hadn’t been there a few months ago.

He remembered looking at Nat over the table, pancakes and hash browns and cups of coffee between them, and wonder if this was what it was like for everyone, this _yearning_ and _love_ that had filled him up until he was choking on it.

Bucky had never _seen_ Nat that way. He had never wanted to have sex with her, never wanted to be with her. When he was seventeen, he realized he liked her as more than a friend, but he hadn’t had a label, so he called her his _best_ friend.

Then, twenty and red-faced, the floodgates had opened, and Bucky never wanted to come down from this high.

So, there was Bucky, twenty years old and starting a book, a book he was pretty damn proud of and loved the idea of. There was Bucky, twenty years old and spinning magic from his fingertips, his keyboard his wand. There was Bucky, twenty years old and riding along the heady feeling of being completely in love for the first time in his life with a woman he didn’t even remotely deserve.

He had two characters, Nicholas and Autumn, who had amazing chemistry, and _of course_ they were going to fall in love, because wasn’t love just the best feeling ever?

But things change, Bucky, now twenty-eight, realizes. People change. Life and love _don’t_ go according to plan.

It wasn’t Autumn Nicholas was in love with.

Bucky went back and read several chapters, scrolling down to random pages, and there were the hints, clawing their way into his writing because _Bucky_ had changed, the story had changed, the characters had shifted, their story was settled on a new course.

Bucky wasn’t the only one who had come out of the Incident changed.

And so, he wrote.

 

*

Things weren’t okay.

Not even a little bit.

Bucky slumped into the cushions of his couch. His laptop rested on his stomach and the ghost of a headache pounded around his temples.

The curtains were drawn, and the light that managed to punch its way through the heavy fabric was muted and yellow. Sickly.

Bucky couldn’t manage to muster enough energy to do anything but write, not even shift away from the light.

He didn’t know what he wanted.

(that was a lie)

He didn’t want to do anything.

(and yet his fingers typed)

He just wanted—

(steve)

This thought spurred him on until he was writing and writing and writing and writing and—

 

*

Nat barged in two days later, furious and upset. She slammed the door shut behind her, and Bucky, startled at the intrusion, watched her, wide-eyed, as she stalked closer to him.

“Steve called me,” she said. “He told me you haven’t spoken to him in _six days_ and you haven’t left the apartment in that time. What. The fuck. Is going. On?”

“I was an idiot,” Bucky whispered and licked his dry, cracked lips.

“I’m not surprised,” Nat shot back. “What the fuck did you do?”

Bucky explained, struggling to find words in a way he hadn’t struggled in a few months. Nat waited him out, allowing him to flounder and find his words, to explain the situation he had landed himself in.

“Bucky,” she said as he fidgeted, bouncing his knee. “You’re putting words in Steve’s mouth.”

“I know,” Bucky said.

“Why don’t you _talk_ to him?”

Bucky hunched over on himself, and he heard Nat exhale a soft breath. He darted a glance up, questioning. Nat was looking at him, the cold and calculating mask that seemed to be a part of her now, but,  
underneath, surprise and sadness. Why was she sad?

“Nat?” he asked hesitantly. Nat pressed her lips together tightly and sucked in a deep breath through her nose.

“I know that look,” she said at last. “I suspected before, but...”

Bucky wondered what she was talking about.

“Oh, James,” she murmured. “You haven’t realized it yet. You’ve gone and fallen in love with him.”

The air seemed to leave Bucky’s body, and he struggled for breath. _One in, one out, one in, one out, one in, one out…_

Bucky’s mind flashed to Steve, with his sun-kissed hair, his kind blue eyes, his patience and his love and his enormous heart and his magical art…

“Bucky,” Nat said. “It’s okay.”

Bucky’s chest heaved with unvoiced sobs. “I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t—” He saw her shake her head violently in his peripherals. “Don’t be sorry,” she said when she regathered herself. “We’ve both grown different.”

“We’ve warped,” he said.

“Yes.” Her eyes fell closed, and Bucky wondered if she was as tired as he suddenly was, if she just wanted to sleep for an eternity and never have to wake up.

“Listen to me, Bucky Barnes,” Natasha said, reopening her eyes and pinning him in her gaze. “I will never stop loving you, just as you will never stop loving me.” Bucky nodded. “But we’re different. We’re … warped. So, you’ve found someone you love, who fits with the you that you are now. Who makes you happy as the you you are now.” She leaned forward, towards Bucky. “I will always be here for you, but we aren’t the same and we aren’t together, not like we used to. What I’m trying to say is—”

“We’ll always love each other,” Bucky finished. “But our paths are parallel, not joined.”

Nat’s lips twitched. “You always had a way with words, didn’t you?”

Bucky felt something shift in his chest. “I used to.”

“You still do.” Nat shifted closer, slowly so Bucky could stop her. He didn’t. Nat reached up and brought his face to her neck, running her fingers through his greasy hair. If Bucky wanted to, he could almost pretend nothing had changed.

He didn’t want that, he didn’t think.

(He was too tired to understand what he wanted, nowadays.)

Still, they held that position for a minute or so, their goodbye to their dreamed-of future, and when they pulled away, Bucky’s heart ached and sang and he tried to smile for his Natasha.

She ran a thumb along the shadows under his eye and brought his head down to kiss his forehead.

A benediction.

A forgiveness.

Then she stood and, without another word, left his apartment, closing the door quietly behind her.

 

*

From: Natasha (9:32 PM)

_Talk to Steve._

 

*

Bucky finished the second book later that night with Nicholas captured by the Council of Technology, Markos in a panic over his disappearance while the rebel Earth Protectors celebrated Julio’s successful solution to the second Clue of the Seasons.

_“I’m going to find Nicholas,” Markos said grimly. “Even if it kills me.”_

_Autumn and May shared a glance while Julio, still flushed with his success, blinked, looking, for a moment, uncertain._

_“Markos,” Autumn said hesitantly. “They took him to the Capital. No one returns from there.”_

_“I don’t care,” Markos snapped. “He’s my best friend. He’s_ your _friend. You should be jumping to save him!”_

_May gave a short, harsh laugh. “He’s as good as dead.”_

_Markos took a step back, the shock splayed across his face replaced with rage. “Then goodbye,” he said coldly. He turned, shouldering his backpack. “Figure out the last two Clues without me.”_

_“We can do it,” Julio said._

_“Sure.” Markos snorted. “I just figured out the connection between the Spring Code and the ancient Sumerian alphabet and the fact that Nemis actually remembered the Time of Seasons but sure, have confidence. That’s probably all you’ll have left after this.”_

_Markos walked away before the others could find a retort to that, exiting the compound and marching across the dry earth to one of the Rovers._

_“I’m coming, Nick,” Markos whispered to himself. “I’m coming for you.”_

 

 

_Far away, Nicholas glared at the Emperor as he was led away into the Dark._

 

Bucky nodded jerkily to himself, reading over his last frenzied sentences and wincing at how some of them read. He was out of practice writing, but he wouldn’t—couldn’t—focus on that. He just needed to get the words out.

He saved the document, retitled _Summer Sorrow,_ and paused.

His fingers were still itching, twitching.

He still had words to spill.

Bucky opened a new document and titled it _Autumn Awakening._

There he hesitated, wondering if he should be doing this or editing the novel he had just finished.

_Fuck it,_ he thought and started to type.

 

_Mikki liked living in the Capital. There was plenty of food, good security, and the newest, best technology in all the Empire._

_That was why, when she saw a lean, hungry figure making his way down the street, she paused, confused. That was enough time for the figure to draw up to her, and she got a good glimpse at the too-thin, hollow-eyed boy._

_“Can you point me to the Capital Building?” the boy asked hoarsely. “I’m needed there. It’s urgent.”_

 

*

Bucky should have done what Nat asked and contacted Steve, but he couldn’t find the courage. He just wanted to sleep. His skin had grown paler without the regular sunlight Steve had urged him into getting. His movements beyond his typing were sluggish and clumsy.

But this was _important._ He was hanging onto the words that were flowing from him at an uncontrollable pace and if he stopped, if he floundered … He’d fall.

Bucky was so afraid of falling.

(Lie. He was afraid of shattering when he hit the ground.)

(Still, the wind howled in his ear…)

(Maybe he’d never land.)

( _running out of time…_ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey ... Guys, readers, amazing people. I love comments. So much. They really provide valuable feedback to me as a writer. I use fanfiction to practice for my own work and anything you can give me (but especially comments) truly help me. Please take the time if you can.
> 
> I've never been to therapy, so I don't know how it works. If you guys see anything wrong, let me know!


	6. Light Carries On

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh I'm dead. Schools kicking my arse and I've been writing so much. Hope this wraps everything up--if not, drop a comment ;)
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own anything except the general plot. I also don't own a Garden Gnome because those things are weird.
> 
> Chapter Title is from _Saturn_ by Sleeping at Last.

The words came like this:

_“Markos?” Nicholas croaked. He looked terrible; his eyes were bloodshot, his lips cracked and flaking and caked with blood, and his hands trembled uncontrollably._

_“Nick,” Markos breathed._

_“Why are you here?” Nick whined in the back of his throat, reaching out and touching Markos’ face._

_“I wasn’t going to leave you,” Markos said, gently cupping Nick’s face. Nick leaned into it, crooning brokenly in the back of his throat._

 

*

The words came like this:

_“I’ve seen that look before,” Mikki said knowingly. “You’re in love.”_

_“What?” Nick asked, defensive. “No, I’m not.”_

_“Don’t lie,” Mikki said, voice sharp and brittle. “You’re in love and you know it.”_

_Nicholas didn’t want to be having this conversation with a maybe-spy-for-the-Enemy. He didn’t want to be having this conversation with anyone, much less Mikki._

_“It’s none of your business,” he snapped._

_“Your ridiculous pining is making it my business. Now.” Mikki clapped her hands together. “You know who it is, yes?”_

_They stared at one another, Nicholas’ silver eyes and Mikki’s dark ones. Nicholas’ mind raced, trying to figure a way out of this, but he was coming up empty. He wasn’t the clever one, Markos was._

_“It’s the wrong person,” Nicholas grudgingly said in length._

_Mikki rolled her eyes. “There is no ‘wrong person’ in love.”_

_“It was supposed to be Autumn,” Nicholas said, and the hurt he had buried flared up momentarily. He had been captured, and he understood how important finding the Clues were, but he thought she would at least try._

_“That girl Markos doesn’t like.”_

_“Markos doesn’t really like any of the others,” Nicholas admitted. “That’s why we’re here in this cave while I heal and not at the Compound where they have medical supplies.”_

_“You could make him take us back,” Mikki said. “You have the power.”_

_Nicholas glanced quickly back towards the entrance where Markos was standing guard._

_“Don’t say that so loud!” he hissed._

_“Why not?” Mikki asked. “It’s true, isn’t it? I saw what you did to those guards.”_

_“Markos doesn’t know.”_

_“Then tell him. Unless … Ah.”_

_“Ah what?” Nicholas didn’t like the way Mikki was looking at him._

_“It’s Markos, isn’t it? The ‘wrong’ person you’ve fallen for.”_

_Nicholas hunched his shoulders in, but didn’t deny it._

_“Tell him.”_

_“No!” Nicholas said. “I’m just his friend, that’s all he needs right now, okay? That’s all we’ve ever been, and I was supposed to love Autumn and we were supposed to finish the Clues, the five of us together and I don’t understand…”_

_“Life and love do not follow a plan,” Mikki chided. “Stop trying to force yourself to feel something you don’t and allow yourself to feel what you do._ Accept _it…”_

 

*

The words came like this:

“I’m sorry,” Bucky blurted out as soon as Steve opened the door.

Steve stared at him, stone-faced. His blonde hair was combed neatly and his worn navy blue sweater that dropped down to his thighs. He wore one of his tattered blue jeans, and he had thick socks covering his feet.

“I just.” Bucky was breathing heavily, and he sucked in a few deep breaths to calm himself down. “I shouldn’t have exploded at you, I should have explained what was going on with me, and I shouldn’t have shut you out.”

“You’re right,” Steve agreed coolly.

“Look, I—I’ve been getting better, but I’m still not all that great. I can and will explain everything if you want me to. If—if you don’t, I’ll go and try not to run into you o-or move or something.”

“Jesus Bucky, you don’t gotta move.” Steve exhaled and scrubbed a hand through his hair. He stepped back and let Bucky into his apartment. Bucky slipped past, making sure not to touch anything, and stood to one side, huddled in on himself.

Steve’s apartment wasn’t as messy as Bucky’s, but it wasn’t completely neat, either. A rack of DVDs sat next to a small TV. The couch was obviously second hand with fat cushions and a rather unimpressive green coloring. Paper littered the coffee table, which had two empty coffee cups on it, and pencils and paintbrushes and charcoal were scattered across the surface.

Hanging up on the walls were photographs—some of Steve and his high school friends, Dum Dum, Jim, and Gabe, others with a woman who looked so like Steve, with the same kind blue eyes and sun-kissed hair. Some of the photos, however, made Bucky pause.

They were of him, as neatly framed as all the others. Steve had three: one of Bucky typing furiously on his computer on their bench, another of Bucky shooting Steve an unimpressed look across a diner table, and the third just of Bucky’s face, zoomed in so that his face was the only thing in the photo. That preserved Bucky-face had a small smile dancing on his lips. He looked sad, but there was something undefinably happy about his expression.

“So?”

Steve’s short question made Bucky look over at him, and Bucky hunched in on himself more.

“I’m Nevada Miles,” Bucky said. “I-I finished the book before I w-was taken and Nat g-got it published. I was just … I was _missing_ something, and I didn’t know what, and I was upset and I shouted at you—”

“Hang on,” Steve interrupted. “ _You’re_ Nevada Miles?”

Bucky bobbed his head and reached into the messenger bag he had slung across his body. From within, he dug out his notes for the first book, the few past drafts Nat had left him, and proof that Natasha worked for Black Widow publishing.

Steve studied the evidence with an inscrutable expression for a few long moments while Bucky fidgeted before stepping back and staring Bucky in the eye, a challenge.

“Why did you run?”

Bucky’s eyes fluttered shut at the question. “I don’t know. I just. Steve, you’re so _perfect_ and _kind_ and I … I messed up. I messed up so bad I didn’t know how to deal and I…”

“I’m what?”

Steve’s voice was lost, confused. Bucky glanced up, through his bangs, and saw that Steve looked vulnerable, perplexed.

“You’re amazing,” Bucky breathed. “I don’t know why you put up with someone like me, but god Steve, you’re so perfect.”

“You’re lying.” Steve phrased it like a question, and Bucky could see he was letting his guard down in the surprise and the shock.

“I’m not,” Bucky promised. He took a hesitant step forward. “How could you be anything but? You put up with me, you put up with my issues, you do it with a smile on your face and you’re so kind and loving and…”

Steve was shaking his head, denying Bucky’s words.

“Oh, Steve,” Bucky said. “You’re worth the universe and more to me.”

Steve tugged at the hem of his sweater uncertainly. “No, I’m not. You are, Buck, I mean _look at you…_ ”

“A neurotic mess who can’t even figure out his own emotions?” Bucky smiled wryly. “Steve, we live in a society that stresses looks above anything else, but I’ve never seen that. _You_ are who I’m after. The things that make you Steve.”

Steve closed his eyes and Bucky fell silent. They could sense they were treading into untested waters, and neither was quite sure what to do about it.

“Bucky,” Steve said, his voice unsteady. “Why didn’t you tell me you were the author of one of my favorite books?”

“I don’t know,” Bucky admitted. “I don’t … Steve, I’ve been figuring myself out again. I-I lost myself, to Zola. I forgot and there was just _so much pain…_ ”

“I will never know what you went through,” Steve whispered, “but I’m here for you.”

Bucky blinked away the tears. “When I got back, I just wanted to sleep forever. I didn’t have the energy to do _anything_. Everything that should have mattered to me didn’t, really, anymore. Time and distance, the two greatest threats to a human being.” Bucky winced.

Steve let out a shaky breath.

“I didn’t mean to cause you pain,” Bucky said quietly. “I didn’t mean to lie to you. I-I’m trying so _hard_ , Steve but it’s so fucking _hard._ ”

“I know, Bucky, I know.”

Bucky’s knees weren’t working quiet right, and he found himself sinking to the floor, shaking. “Steve, I’m _broken._ ”

Steve knelt in front of him, eyes wide and blue and kind. “You’re finding yourself.”

“Because you’ve been guiding me.”

Steve shook his head. “Do you know what Nevada Miles’ bio—your bio—says in the back of the book?”

Bucky shook his head.

“It starts off with a quote. _‘When I write, I create. When I create, I spin magic.’_ Me and Nat may have been there with you as you figured yourself out, but it was you who created yourself, Buck. It was you who built yourself back up again.”

Tears leaked down Bucky’s face and he reached out, grabbing at Steve’s shirt and tucking himself in the crook of Steve’s neck, breathing him in through his sobs. Steve wrapped his arms around Bucky’s shuddering shoulders as if he was holding something precious.

“I’m sorry you’re going through this, Bucky, and I’m sorry you felt like you had to distance yourself from me, but please remember I’m here for you.”

“I treated you like shit,” Bucky choked out.

“Yeah, you did. Don’t do it again, okay?”

Bucky couldn’t say anything, just nodded into Steve’s skin.

“And, uh, how’d you find my apartment? I don’t remember ever bringing you up here.”

“You always took the stairs, so I figured you lived on the second floor, so I knocked on all the doors.” It had taken nearly all his courage to, but Bucky soon began to ignore the people answering if they weren’t Steve, just smiled and said, “Wrong door, sorry to bother you,” and moved on. “Then, when I couldn’t find you, I went to the fourth floor.”

He felt the vibrations of Steve’s laugh and Bucky reached out and poked Steve on the shoulder. “Then, when you weren’t on the fourth floor, I went to the fifth and what the fuck, Steve, you have _asthma_ , what the fuck are you doing walking up five flights of stairs every day?”

“Gotta get my exercise somehow,” Steve said amicably.

“Asshole,” Bucky mumbled.

Steve kept laughing.

 

*

Bucky spent most of the night at Steve’s, watching movies and eating some pancakes they made together. It was soothing, relaxing, and Bucky found himself relaxing in Steve’s presence, like normal.

It was one of the best nights Bucky could remember having.

 

*

After that, Steve and Bucky tentatively settled into this new thing between the two of them. It wasn’t quite friendship, but Bucky didn’t think it was love (yet.)

They started going to the bench again, even though the days were getting a little chillier. Bucky would alternate between writing—either adding to his third book or editing his second—and looking at the grove of trees as the wind dances through the leaves. Steve had started to draw the cover for the second book after reading a draft Bucky had deemed passable.

“It’s amazing,” Steve had after he had finished.

“It’s not as good as it could be,” Bucky shot back.

Steve snorted. “Nothing ever is.”

_You are,_ Bucky wanted to say.

 

*

The hours trickled into days, the day morphed into weeks, and before Bucky knew it, a month had gone by and Natasha was standing in front of him, eyebrow raised, and Bucky presented the second book.

“I hadn’t realized you had finished it,” she said.

“You still get to edit it,” Bucky replied. They were in his apartment, Steve curled up on the couch, watching them.

Nat reached out and accepted the pile of papers. “I’ll read it over or give it to Wanda. She’s a fantastic editor.”

“I trust your judgement.”

Nat glanced up at him before her eyes slid over to Steve. “Bucky,” she said, her eyes still locked on Steve’s. “I think I may have left my shoes here last time, the red ones? Be a dear and go look for them.”

Bucky wasn’t stupid, but he also didn’t want a cross Natasha on his hands. He slunk out of the room and sat on the floor of his bedroom, listening.

The thing was—Bucky had spent so much time alone in this apartment, he spent a lot of time listening to the muffled voices and the creaks and groans. He could hear everything in his apartment.

“You like him,” Natasha was saying.

“Oh, um…”

“Don’t deny it for my sake. Bucky and I are over, have been for months. Do you like him?”

“Whether or not I do, it’s up to him, Ms. Romanoff.”

“Oh God, Steve, I’m not his _mother._ ”

“…Sorry, Nat.”

“He likes you,” Nat said bluntly. “Do _you_ like him?”

There was a pause.

“Yes,” Steve said. “How could I not? But—are you sure he likes me? He’s never given off any hint…”

“That’s because Bucky isn’t wired like you and I,” Nat said. “He’s demisexual, though I’m not sure if he knows that.”

“You can’t just decide someone’s sexuality!”

“I didn’t. Bucky, before he was taken, he explained exactly how he experienced romantic and sexual feelings. He just didn’t know the word for it. I found it afterwards.”

“Oh.”

“Look, Bucky is, at this point, head over heels for you. Steve, ask him out. Please. Let Bucky be loved, let him know you love him.”

“I don’t…”

“Don’t lie to me. I know.”

“…You’re slightly scary.”

“Thank you.”

 

*

Bucky knew how to use the Internet.

Well, everyone kinda does at this point, but most people use it to look at angry forum rants and John Oliver, let’s be real here.

Bucky did that too, of course (John Oliver made him smile, if only in his mind) but he knew how to sort through all the bullshit and find some hard facts.

So, he _knew_ he wasn’t broken.

But boy, did it feel like it sometimes.

 

*

Here’s what Bucky knew: He loved sparsely, he loved hard. It took time for him to connect to someone, it took even more time to love that person.

But Steve?

The connection he had felt with Steve was natural, freeing, and so achingly _easy_. It had happened quickly, and Steve was always there.

Bucky made his own magic, writing the words that formed in his mind onto a page to be read and loved but Steve…

Steve was magic—he was love and patience and compassion and hope.

Bucky had chased after his writing for years, yearning for a taste of that magic. Then there was Steve, who was magic just by existing, whose very existence was something special, something precious.

The song welled up in Bucky’s ears, and he found he had never agreed more:

_How rare and beautiful it truly is that we exist…_

 

*

Bucky kissed Steve the moment Nat left.

Steve’s eyes were wide and startled, but Bucky had telegraphed each of his moves, and Steve hadn’t said no, had nodded slightly just before Bucky swooped in and pressed their lips together.

Bucky’s eyes fluttered close in the silence and he couldn’t breathe, but he could taste the sun on his lips and hear the music of his blood rushing through his veins.

Steve’s lips were dry and slightly chapped, but as Bucky moved to angle better, Steve gasped slightly and pulled Bucky down, closer, until they were awkwardly pressed together but Bucky couldn’t care less because…

Because it was _Steve._

 

*

Here's the thing:

Stories don't end the way we expect. They don't have a plot outside of the ones we make. That, of course, scares people who then make _everything_ have a meaning but what they don't understand and what a lot of people don't believe is this: This life that we live is ours. We choose. We laugh, we live, we die and sometimes it isn't pretty and sometimes it isn't fun, but we have the ability to find our own happiness and write our own endings. We can die with a smile on our face surrounded by love.

Bucky pressed a kiss to the top of Steve's head as his eyes traced the moon-splattered sheets and smiled to himself, soft and secret.

He had never felt more loved.

 

*

READ ALL OF _THE SEASON’S RETURN_ SERIES:

SPRING SHOWERS (2014)

SUMMER SORROWS (2018)

AUTUMN AWAKENING (2019)

WINTER’S WARNING (2020)

 

*

“Happy birthday, jerk,” Steve whispered against his lips.

Bucky smiled and kissed him. “Thanks, punk.”

“Oh my god,” Clint shouted. “Get a room!”

Steve smiled and Bucky, and Bucky smiled back.

Looking at Steve was like looking at the sunlight, and Bucky had never dreamed he’d be this happy.

He tucked his head against Steve’s neck and breathed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My thanks to everyone who read it. This was probably one of the more complex stories I've written and I cannot thank onethingconstant enough for giving me such an amazing prompt and thank you to mmouse15 for reading and commenting. You both made writing this thing worth it <3


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